
Class. 'PS35'35' 
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CDPJflUGHT DEPOSIT. 



SHADOWY THRESHOLDS 



SHADOWY 
THRESHOLDS 



BY 

CALE YOUNG RICE 

AUTHOR OF "WRAITHS AND REALITIES." 
"COLLECTED PLAYS AND POEMS," ETC. 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1919 



<s^ 



Copyright, 1919, by 
The Century Co. 



PublisJted, September, 1919 



^'tP 30 !9I9 



//. 



SO 



©CI.A535027 



TO 

JANE GILMORE KNOTT 

AND TO THE MEMORY OF 

RICHARD W. KNOTT 

FRIENDS ENDEARED BY MANY HAPPY 

HOURS OF MUTUAL INTERESTS 

AND INTIMACIES 



PREFACE ^ 

I 

Though America's poetry criticism just now 
promises well, in spite of some incredibly deluded 
judgments, a constant protest arises against the 
" personal " nature of a portion of it. This por- 
tion largely emanates from certain poet-critics or 
poetry centres and proceeds under logical de- 
fenses which it should be interesting to examine. 
They are mainly two: One that "no permanent 
standards of judging poetry exist," and the other 
that " no satisfactory definition of what poetry is 
can be agreed upon." 

The first of these assertions is in high favor 

^ This preface originally appeared in the New York Times 
Review of Books, in Febniar>', 1919. Two poems in this 
volume, also, appeared in a former volume which will not 
be republished. 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

with the " ultra-moderns " — whose extremism in 
poetry makes as dull reading as academicism itself. 
As dull, that is, to those " moderns " who hold that 
art freedom and finality no more spring from ex- 
cesses than from conservatism. Who believe, on 
the contrary, that only a selective liberalism offers 
both the repose and unrest necessary to permanently 
interesting creativeness. 

In calling attention to this, as I do, and to the 
fact that the creed of " no standards " seems self- 
destructive, I am not to be construed as opposing 
free verse movements. Such verse I have ever 
used — though not the unimpassioned, unimagina- 
tive, insufficiently rhythmical prose kinds, and not 
with the belief that it is a substitute for inspira- 
tion. Neither it, however, nor any quality of poetry 
old or new has any necessary bearing upon the 
assertion that " judging poetry is nine-tenths a 
matter of preference, not of applying standards." 
That assertion being merely a denial of all author- 
itativeness in criticism, inevitably destroys any 



PREFACE ix 

worth in its own practice — except such as comes 
from the mere pleasure of expressed opinions. 

This would be admitted, but there is more. The 
tone of the " no standards " criticism rarely indi- 
cates that its adherents really believe themselves 
incapable of giving the reader permanent guidance 
or of exacting faith from him. On the contrary, 
an intolerant confidence in its rightness makes it 
impatient of all " preference " save its own. Prac- 
ticers of it, therefore, are not only given an op- 
portunity for expressing their personal equation, 
but find in it a shelter for much " preference " aris- 
ing in friendship, enmity, or ambitious desire to 
boost the particular kind of verse they themselves 
write. 

Further examination of the assertion cannot be 
attempted here, but this much concerning its ori- 
gin can be said. Preference is fundamental in all 
judgment, as faith — according to Mr. Balfour's 
famous argument — is the foundation of all be- 
lief. Most people, for example, prefer the beau- 



X PREFACE 

tiful to the ugly, the true to the false, the noble to 
the base. But since times come when conventional 
imitations of the beautiful cause revolt to the ugly; 
when banality brings craving for the new, though 
it be false; or when the uninspiredly noble leads to 
choice of the decadent — the cry easily rises that 
no standards of judging poetry really exist. 

These revolts are not surprising, and are often 
of value. What is surprising is that so many fail 
to see that the measure of our artistic sincerity and 
intelligence is not determined by revolt alone, but 
by the things to which we revolt — and by what 
we are willing to destroy. Art may depend on ex- 
asperation rather than inspiration to break its 
bonds, but exasperation is not inspiration. Only 
those extremists who take it to be so will ask us to 
believe that any prose dullness or absurdity artic- 
ulated into lines and strung unlyrically before us 
makes something wholly important in poetry — 
something no permanent standards can judge. 

The second assertion that poetry cannot be sat- 



PREFACE xi 

isfactorily defined is not confined to the ultra-raod- 
emists, though frequently used by them and other 
coterie critics in defending everything they choose 
to call poetry. Our inability, however, to arrive 
at a definition of poetry that will be as satisfac- 
tory as any other definition in this relative world 
seems due to several confusions. 

The first of these is that some of us, instead 
of seeking to make our definition a scientific de- 
limitation, make it a panegyric. When Keats calls 
sweet peas beautiful flowers " on tiptoe for a flight," 
he is not defining sweet peas, but magically prais- 
ing them. So the recent prize poem defining poetry 
" a magic light that springs from the deep soul of 
things " is likewise praise — charming but not de- 
finitive. 

Again, some demand that a definition shall be a 
touchstone enabling us to tell unfailingly what lines 
are poetry. This is like asking that a definition 
of gold should contain the name of the acid that 
detects its pureness. 



xii PREFACE 

Yet others, forgetting that all things are condi- 
tional, and that each must be defined in tlie unde- 
fined terms of others, ask for an absolute defini- 
tion. Only a satisfactor>' working definition is re- 
quired. 

Finally, many do not realize that the main ob- 
ject of our definition is to distinguish poetry from 
prose, on the one hand, and from mere verse on 
the other. Or, if they do, they assert that, since 
all people through all time do not agree as to just 
what things are poetry, no satisfactory definition is 
possible. Yet experts should be able to define 
poetry as satisfactorily as other experts define 
stones or stars — provided they only seek a def- 
inition which is a descriptive delimitation of 
that art from any other with which it may be con- 
fused. 

If these conclusions are right there is no reason 
why poetry experts should not as unanimously ac- 
cept a working definition of poetn' as experts in 
other fields accept other definitions. I offer there- 



PREFACE xiii 

fore this analysis of poetry and a consequent defini- 
tion: 

Poetry on its formal side is an art of rhythm, 
metrical or unmetrical. This rhythm must differ 
from prose rhythm by being more lyrically or meas- 
uredly organized. So much is shown by its division 
into line-lengths, and by the fact that some prose 
has so many of poetry's other qualities that mere 
division into line-lengths will suffice to give it the 
additional lyric value which enables us to say it is 
poetry. This, however, is not the case with much 
so-called " polyphonic prose " which is merely 
camouflaged by rhymes, color-adjectives, and oc- 
casional metrical rhythms into a resemblance of 
poetry; as other prose is camouflaged into seeming 
poetry by being shredded into free verse. 

On the other hand, and from the side of sub- 
stance, there are many qualities — of imagination, 
passion, charm, etc. — which make poetry when 
they are embodied in a sufficiently musical rhythm. 
The degree of originality, felicity, or intensity of 



xiv PREFACE 

these qualities, and of their rh}ihra, determines 
the worth of the poetry. For unless any lines in 
question possess some of these qualities in a meas- 
ure so rare as to appeal to the real poetry ex- 
perts of the generations, they must drop into the 
class of mere verse. 

Nor does this principle fail if the supposed 
poetry experts of any generation fail to estimate a 
Shakespeare — as has happened; or if any promi- 
nent one or number of them prefer a Pope, as did 
B}ron, to a Wordsworth, Slielle}', or Keats. The 
critics of any generation may be right in their esti- 
mate of a poem, but only the continued survival 
of its lines for the experts of other generations suf- 
fices to give them final standing. 

A definition of poetr}', then, which will describe 
and delimit it from prose, on the one hand, and 
from mere verse, on the other, must take all this 
into consideration. It must, in addition, for brev- 
ity's sake, find a common term which will be in- 
clusive of the many different qualities poetry may 



PREFACE XV 

possess. Such a definition — though doubtless a 
better can be framed — I here offer as adequate. 

Poetry is the expression of our experience in 
emotional word-rhythms more lyrically measured 
or organized than those of prose, and having some 
permanency of appeal not possessed by mere verse. 

Whether this definition be accepted or not, one 
thing is clear. We must get rid of the " twilight 
zone " around poetry in which irresponsible criti- 
cism can ambush mere likes and dislikes. This can 
be done by the common-sense recognition that judg- 
ing poetry is not " nine-tenths a matter of prefer- 
ence." For although poets may transcend, or critics 
repeal, the laws of criticism of their predecessors, 
they can never abrogate the fundamental perma- 
nent standards of judging true poetic literature. 
Rareness of rhythm — just now stressed as if it 
were the whole of inspiration — and of passion, 
imagination, etc., are immemorial standards of 
judging, and to them all critics must, and invari- 
ably do, appeal. 



PREFACE 



II 



Another source of the critical confusion of both 
today and yesterday has been due, it seems to me, 
to the failure of critics to comprehend the funda- 
mental relationships of realism, classicism, and ro- 
manticism — and the subvarieties of each. For 
that impressionism, symbolism, mysticism, idealism, 
transcendentalism, futurism, imagism, etc., are but 
varieties of these three fundamental divisions of 
poetry, or of other literature, can easily be shown. 

An investigation of literary history would re- 
veal, I fancy, that revolts against realism tend to 
pass through classicism to romanticism — and the 
circle is completed by the revolt from romanticism 
back to realism. This latter is a phenomenon we 
have recently been experiencing in the reaction 
against " Victorianism " — which is regarded as de- 
caying romanticism. 

A revolt from romanticism — or classicism — to 
realism is usually thought of as " a return to na- 



PREFACE xvii 

ture," or to " the things of everyday life." This 
return, however, if put psychologically, means es- 
sentially a return to a literature of the senses. For 
realism is most largely concerned with the senses 
and sense-observation of life, 

A revolt from realism to classicism means that 
the sensuous has become dull and unsatisfying, 
and that poets and public want more of the litera- 
ture of the mind and soul. 

A revolt from classicism to romanticism can like- 
wise only mean that writers are no longer finding 
the things of the mind and soul sufficiently stim- 
ulating to the poetic faculty. Therefore they reach 
out into the marvels, mysteries, and wonders that 
surround life — even into the supernatural or cos- 
mically unknown. 

If realism is thus the literature of the senses, it 
is easy to see that impressionism, futurism, and 
imagism are but minor forms of it. Impression- 
ism is the literature of sense impressions that are 
evanescent or atmospheric. Imagism is but static 



xviii - PREFACE 

impressionism stripped of atmosphere and subjec- 
tivity. Futurism but a clamor for sense impres- 
sions that are " primitive " or brutally real. 

In like manner transcendentalism and idealism 
are but sublimated forms of classicism; and the kin- 
ship of symbolism and mysticism to romanticism 
becomes manifest. Symbolists either wish to ex- 
press life mysteriously — " in a way that cannot 
be analyzed " the French Symbolists put it; or to 
express the mysteries of life under certain forms or 
symbols that will give them a suggestive concrete- 
ness. Mystics, on the other hand, are but romantics 
who mount out of sense, mind, and soul to some 
transcendent unity with the universe or God. 

That this analysis is correct must, I believe, be 
admitted. With its critical recognition we should 
be better able to comprehend the need or value of 
changing from any one of these " isms " to another 
and the defects literary minds are likely to fall 
into in making the change. Mere rebels, for ex- 
ample, would not so easily be able to shout or 



PREFACE xix 

cackle as if by merely rebelling they had laid the 
egg from which all future criticism and creation 
must proceed. Rebels with a real variant of any 
" ism " could get a hearing without going through 
the confused process of overestimation and conse- 
quent underestimation at the hands of the academ- 
ics. Finally, we should recognize that all " new- 
nesses " in poetry are but variants of these three 
fundamental forms, and so be able more quickly 
to place them. 

Ill 

For a basis from which to make comparisons of 
poets one word more may, perhaps, be added here. 
Every poet who is called by any considerable num- 
ber of reviewers a foremost, or the foremost, poet of 
his country is naturally a mark for criticism by 
those poet-critics who aspire to his place. Or if 
criticism fails, to a boycott of silence — on the 
theory that an enemy who has achieved should not be 
advertised. And especially is this the case if such a 



XX PR£FACE 

poet be an advocate of the full freedom of poetry as 
against the narrow autocracy of any *' ism " which 
the aspirants happen to be riding. 

As this kind of critici m is manifestly worthless, 
if not discreditable, I will venture to suggest an 
analytical comparative test that has served to re- 
strain my o\Mi judgments, and that is at least uni- 
versal of application. 

I have believed that poetry without fundamental 
vitality is bloodless; without passion, fleshless; with- 
out spirit, nerveless; and without thought, spineless. 
I have believed that without direct natural speech it 
is cramped or crippled; without true musical rhythm, 
destitute of grace; without imagination, shorn of 
beauty; and without charm, of that lure which 
springs, perhaps, from a blending of some of these 
qualities — or of all. 

Great poetr}', therefore, it is evident, must pos- 
sess many of these attributes, and the greatest at 
times seems to combine all. Which of them, on the 
other hand, any particular " ism " lacks, may easily 



TREFACE xxi 

be determined by those who care to make the 
analysis.^ 

1 The formula quoted in this discussion that poetry criti- 
cism is " nine-tenths a matter of preference " comes from 
Mr. Louis Untermeyer, uhose critics have amply pointed out 
the uses to which he puts it. Mr. Untermeyer offers no 
definition of v.hat poetry is — that might limit his " pref- 
erences " too much. But as he has espoused the Heine tem- 
perament, revolutionary socialism, the theory of Synge that 
poetry must become " brutal," and a belief that Whitman 
is the only poet whom the poet of the future should imi- 
tate, it is not difficult to estimate the comparative value of 
his judgments, preferences, and exclusions in the field of 
the twentieth century's poetry. That he adulates, also, the 
kind of verse he seeks to write, is of course intelligible. 

It may be, as has been said, that Mr. Untermeyer is merely 
incapable of conceiving finality in poetry. Or, perhaps, as 
has been averred, it is the congenital poison of self-interest, 
partizanships and malice which vitiates his " preferences." 
In ajiy case it has become evident to many that these prefer- 
ences are as raw as the raw material which he usually judges 
to be permanent poetry, and that his judgments are rarely 
trustworthy, even in the sphere of his obsession, except 
when they follow the opinions of otliers. 

In making these strictures, however, I must tell the reader 
that Mr. Untermeyer is acridly opposed to any praise given 
work I have done. To retaliate in kind on his own verse 
would, of course, be the usual thing to do. But the present- 
day practice certain poets have of reviewing the books of 
their friends or enemies seems to me more than questionable. 

How far any such poet-reviewer is sincere, or how far he 
becomes, by omissions or commissions, that most con- 



xxii PREFACE 

temptible of literary parasites, a petty thief of poetic repu- 
tations, is impossible to determine. But as there is no law 
compelling a critic to give credit to good work, nor any to 
prevent malicious attacks on it, the temptation is mani- 
fest. Consequently the spirit of telling the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, of both friend and foe, is 
rare with these poet-critics. And that of course is the basis 
of any criticism worthy the name. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

A Poet's CnaDHOOD 3 

I First Steps 3 

II The Unseen 3 

III Birth 4 

IV Fire 5 

V Travel 5 

VI Woman 6 

VII Crime 7 

VIII The Grave 7 

IX Church 8 

X School 9 

XI Glory 9 

XII Transplanted 10 

XIII Nostalgia 11 

XIV Caste 11 

XV Poetry 12 

XVI CHttD-LOVE 13 

XVII Tragedy 13 

XVIII The Broken Heart 14 

XIX God IS 

Flnitude 16 

The Colonel's Story 18 

Peace Triumphant! 24 

Thresholds 27 

Mh-licent Passes 29 

xxiii 



xxiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Broken Wings of the Ye.\rs 34 

SEA-HO.\RDrNGS 36 

Wanting the Moon 39 

K'U-KlANG 41 

The Old Pioneers 43 

A Florida Interlude 45 

Naquita 4S 

After Their Parting 51 

I-ife"s Answer 53 

Her Hero 54 

An Aviator's Mother 56 

Winter Floods 58 

Dawn-Bliss 60 

Fair Florida 62 

To a Suicide 64 

I Know Your Heart, O Sea ! 66 

Nox Mirabilis 69 

Flutterers 71 

Ships and the Sea 72 

Imperturbable , . 74 

A Traveller, Looking Back 75 

A Chance Enchantment 7S 

Herat 80 

A Mohammedan to the ;Moon S2 

A Priest's Song S4 

Nipponese S5 

A Word's Magic 86 

A Charji to Bring Children 88 

Hearts to Mend 89 

Hunger 91 

Judgment 93 

My Neighbor 94 

Chant Terrestrl-u, 97 



CONTENTS XIV 

rAGE 

An Interior 99 

The Courtesan . '. , 100 

The Sisters 101 

His Dream 103 

Mistress Imitortal 104 

To Richard W. Knott 106 

Clairvoyance 109 

Nigiitward 110 

A Florida Boating Song Ill 

Unfathomable 113 

An Evening Etching 114 

A Heart's Cry 115 

A Modern Stoic 117 

Paths 118 

Need of Storm 120 

Moments 122 

I A Greek Dying 122 

II A Chinese Poet 122 

III Divination 123 

IV Moments 124 

V A Pagan's Creed 124 

VI Youth 125 

A Modern Chantey 126 

Songs to A. H. R 127 

I Free 127 

II Sthl! 128 

III Calls 129 

IV The Old Need 129 

V When 130 

To the Afternoon Moon, at Sea 133 

ins'jbstantiaiities 135 

The Herding 136 

Full Tide 138 



xxvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

On the Maine Coast 140 

Seance 142 

Overworn 143 

Extreme Unction 145 

A War Winter 147 

To America at War 149 

Storm and Lull 150 

To President Wilson 153 

Thanksgwing, 1918 155 

A Revolutionist's Despair 156 

A Mother's Dirge 157 

Poet and People 158 

Said Chang Wu 161 

To Poets Who Despond 163 

Young April 165 

Old Love and New 166 

Vanquished 168 

A Gambler's Guess at It 169 

The Chime-Master's Song 170 

Resurgen'ce 171 

The Greater Patience 173 

After the Symphony % . . . . 174 



SHADOWY THRESHOLDS 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 

I 
FIRST STEPS 
A country village, night . . . 
A child stealing from home 
Along a lone plank sidewalk, 
Where stars and the eyes of cattle 
Stared tliro the darkness at him; 
And where the whisper of trees 
Was conscience — till he had reached 
His father's store, and fallen 
Sobbing, tho triumphant, 
Into his fatlier's arms. 

II 
THE UNSEEN 
What was the meaning of it, 
" Total eclipse of the sun." 
3 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 
Whispered about with terror? 
A shadow fell on the apples 
That scented the noonday orchard. 
And the child, too, M'as lifted 
To gaze thro a smoked glass at it. 
And tho he only saw 
The glass — not the moon's ghost 
Haunting the sun's vastness — 
Awes invisible swept him. 

Ill 
BIRTH 
He swung, on tlie porch, in the rain, 
At his grandmother's, near. 
They had sent him there; for the doctor 
Had said he would bring him a sister 
From a secret hollow stump 
Somewhere in tlie owl-kept woods. 
They came for him, and showed him 
A little red sightless thing 
So new to the world that he fled — 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 
Being too near, himself, 
To the Nescience whence it came. 

IV 
FIRE 

\^^ith stolen matches they did it, 

He and his elder brother 

And the boy in the house beyond them. 

The hayloft door was open, 

And climbing they kindled the hay, 

For the peril of seeing it burn — 

Kindled and beat it out 

Each time . . . till sudden the air 

Was a frenzy of flame about them. 

How many a time since then 

Has he played with the peril of fire! 

■ V 
TRAVEL 
He went at last on a journey 
With one of his father's drivers — 
Miles and miles, high-seated 



6 A POET'S CHILDHOOD 

On a hogshead of tobacco. 
All day the waggon bore them 
B}' fields and bogg>' bottoms 
To the market — the end of tlie world. 
And the next day, returning, 
Thro saddened woods at twilight, 
He heard the whippoorwill. 
And knew the first lone longing 
For things never to be. 

VI 
WOMAN 
A travelling photographer, 
Tenting, came to the village. 
And with him, glad and golden, 
His little daughter of four. 
The boy, swept by a charm 
As old as the garden of Eden, 
Forgot the promised boon 
Of the camera's image of him 
For his image fondly shaped. 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 
And henceforth to be sought, 
In the shining eye of an Eve. 

VII 

CRIME 
Election day — August, 
The town thronged with tlie country, 
And first-pluckt watermelons 
Ripe to the heart with redness. 
Money to spend — and so 
A saloon door flung open, 
A rind flicked at a passer, 
A curse, a blade flashing, 
Then blood, the stain of the ages, 
On stones that seemed to the boy 
The altar of murdered Abel. 

VIII 
THE GRAVE 
From a negro hut, glowing 
With supper fire at twilight, 
A mournful melody floated 



8 A POET'S CHILDHOOD 

To the boy, " I may be gone! 
I too, O Lord, tomorrow. 
In cold earth may be lying, 
Down in a lonesome graveyard . . * 
O Lord . . . how long! " 
The first sad wtchery was it 
Of death to the boy . . . " How long! " 

IX 

CHURCH 
He had only heard its bell, 
A far sweet quaver, calling 
Across the night or the morning; 
Or seen its shuttered whiteness, 
With legs of brick to stand on, 
And bonneted with a cupola — 
Like the spinster of his dread. 
They took him — and he heard . . . 
And, years thereafter, hearkened . . . 
But now he only worships 
Outside it, like the bell. 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 

X 
SCHOOL 
" Two times two arc four "... 
Did the grass and trees know figures? 
" Three times four are twelve "... 
Had the brook to count its ripples? 
He did not know: and }-et 
So wise to him were the words 
It murmured, that all books 
For many a Spring thereafter 
Seemed but as prisons to punish 
Eyes made for the hills and heavens. 

XI 
GLORY 
A sorghum mill, grinding . . . 
To the back of the horse that turned it 
The boy lifted, exultant — 
A dream come true at last. 
Grinding, griiiding, grinding . . . 



10 A POET'S CHILDHOOD 

Till he tired of the height's loneness, 
Of glory — that is only 
The going around in a circle 
Above the talk and the laughter. 
Tired . . . and yet thro the years 
Has mounted his dream, to grind. 

XII 
TRANSPLANTED 
He was to move to the city! 
The garden fruits were gathered 
And sold; house things uprooted. 
The stage-coach, made of mud 
And creaks, took the boy in it — 
He little knew how far! 
The train, a marvellous terror, 
Swept the woods backward from it. 
The boat, on the flood of the River, 
Paused — and the boy walked forth 
From its ark to an earth of strangeness. 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 11 

XIII 
NOSTALGIA 
Houses, houses, houses: 
And one, lonely among them. 
His father's, reached in the twilight. 
The boy wanted a barn 
And cows tinkling the meadow; 
But instead came clamor of firebells 
And of fire engines shrieking . . . 
Then a new hungering knowledge 
Of things irrevocable, 
Whose name is Nevermore. 

XIV 

CASTE 
He sat on his gate gazing . . . 
And the church steeple opposite 
Was the highest thing in the world. 
But the Sunday-arrayed children, 
Who passed in snowy linen, 



12 A POET'S CHIT.DHOOD 

With ties and sashes flowing, 
Laughed at his rustic dress. 
He sat ... and the curse of caste 
That has shrivelled all church steeples 
Shrunk his too — and sullied 
All high wonder in him. 

XV 
POETRY 
A rainy day and the room 
Of the Public School crowded. 
Faces strange and alien 
From lands of the Pole and Teuton. 
A teacher pale and fragile. 
The name of the " great " Longfellow. 
Then words, " The vine still clings 
To the mouldering wall." Sadness: 
And the poet in him aching 
For the first time to be bom. 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 13 

XVI 
CHILD-LOVE 
At the corner she lived, the girl 
Who had taken his part when laughter 
At the village clothes he wore 
Was tossed at him by the others. 
Beautiful, lithe and free 
She was, brave and ready 
To follow him into perils. 
And he gave her his heart — nor knows 
Today if the love of a child, 
A youth, or a man, is divinest. 

XVII 
TRAGEDY 
Summer days — and the day 
For a picnic into the woods. 
The tinkling mule-car took them, 
The girl, joy-bright, beside him. 
And all day he was her hero. 



14 A POETS CHILDHOOD 

While daringly she followed — 
Leaping, as they returned, 
Once and again from the car, 
Leaping — at last to fall 
Beneath blind wheels — that taught him 
How little love is to death. 

XVIII 
THE BROKEN HEART 
They took her away in the hearse, 
While he stood by, forgotten — 
Yet never more to forget. 
The water-plug on the corner. 
That once was a seat of dreams. 
Where he had waited for her. 
Was left unclaimed to the others. 
For now he had found the way 
To the immemorial pools 
Of healing — the heart's pools 
Of Silence and Solitude. 



A POET'S CHILDHOOD 15 

XIX 
GOD 

He ran far in the moonlight, 

Alone, gladly alone, 

Playing at " Hare and Hounds "; 

And, after the hounds were baffled, 

Turned, moon-quieted, home. 

He sank on the grass and his gaze 

Floated far up the steeple, 

Up, then endlessly on — 

Till sudden it touched Infinity, 

Unfathomable — and God. 



FIXITUDE 

I 

One ruby, amid a diamond spray of stars, 

The coast light flashes; 

The tide plashes. 
Across a mile of bay-sweet land the moon 

Comes soon: 
She has lost half of her lustre and looks old. 

A cricket, finitude's incarnate cry, 

And the infinite waters with their hushless sigh 

Are the two sounds 

The night has: 
Eacli in eternal wistfulne.ss abounds. 

II 
I have wakened out of my sleep because I too 
Am wistful, 
Tristeful; 

16 



FINITUDE 17 

Because I know that half of me is gone, 
And that all frailty cries in the cricket's tone. 

I have wakened out of my sleep to watch and listen. 

For what? 
To sec for a moment universes glisten; 
To wonder and want — and go to sleep again, 
And die, 

And be forgot. 



THE COLONEL'S STORY 

No, no, my friend; there is an agony 
Not to be exorcised out of the world 
By any voice of hope. — But I will tell you. 

The Soiiia was sailing without lights — 

Bearing three hundred souls — and without bells; 

For she hud reached the " Zone," where the Hun 

sharks 
With their torpedo tongues could spit death at us 
Out of the inky sea-hells where they hid. 
On the main deck we stood, in a wind-shelter, — 
My wife, and by us a pale girl whose eyes 
Had all disaster in them. And my thought was, 
" I hope to God the moon is shut so deep 
In cloud-murk there in the East that hurricanes 
18 



THE COLONEL'S STORY 19 

Can't blow her out of it." For in the Zone 
The moon had come to mean only betrayal, 
And now, if ever, was her wanton chance. 

The slipping water soaked with soulless dark 
Fell under and around us shudderingly, 
Yet somehow brought an anxious hopefulness. 
"We 're making twenty knots," I said; and felt 
Our bow cut thro the tangle of the waves 
As if the No Man's Sea ahead of us 
Would soon be crossed; and I, out to rejoin 
My regiment, could set my wife safe somewhere, 
And help again to stab that curst Amphibian, 
Autocracy — whose spawn in the sea gave it 
A terror greater than infinitude's. 
For God knows, with the woman that one loves 
Aboard a ship, and only a cloud perhaps 
Between the Hun's shark eyes and sure escape 
From the black icy fathoms that would choke her. 
There 's little left within a man but nerves. 
So when I drew her closer into the shelter, 



20 THE COLONELS STORY 

Out of the sheering wind, tlie life belt 

She wore seemed like a coffin in that sepulchre 

Of night and sea. And when the other, there, 

With the disaster eyes and pallid face, 

Turned it toward us, I was shaken as if 

The moon had suddenly walked out of her shroud 

With phosphorescent purpose to reveal us. 

But on we plunged and tumbled, till at last 

The blank monotonous sink and swell lulled me 

To faith. And I was only thinking softly 

Of her — my wife's — first kiss on a summer night 

Under the moonlit laurels of our home. 

When came a cry from that wan girl gazing 

Frozenly on the sea — where the moon now 

Indeed was pointing at us pallidly 

A death-path. And my throat was gripped by it, 

That clutching cry, as if the glacial depths 

Down under us already had risen up. 

So starting toward the slipping rail I called, 

" What is it? where? " For, tense as a clairvoyant, 



THE COLONEL'S STORY 21 

With eyes that seemed to feel under the tide 
The stealthy peril stalking us, she stood there. 

After a moment's gazing I too saw — 
What she foresensed — destruction seething to us. 
"The boats!" I cried, "the rafts!" And stum- 
bled back 
Over the streaming deck to her I loved. 
Then the shock came, as if the sea's wild heart 
Had broken under us, and ripped the entrails. 
The human hundreds out of our vessel's hold, 
To strew the foam with mania and despair, 
With shrieks strangled by wind and wave and 

terror. 
And thro that floating, mangled, blind confusion, 
Where hands reached at the infinite then sank. 
Where faces clung to wreckage as to eternity, 
I sought for her who shared my life's voyage, 
Who had been my heart's helmswoman; and who 
now, 



22 THE COLONEL'S STORY 

Wrecked with me, swirled, too, in the torn wa- 
ters . . . 
And soon I saw her, still by that wan girl, 
Tossed on a watery omnipotence. 

Blind with brine I swam for her — as the moon, 
Her treachery done, again got to a cloud. 
Flung back by every wave, I fought; beating 
Against them as against God. And soon, somehow, 
Had reached to a limp body on the surge. 
Limp and strange — but living . . . and not 

drowned ! 
Then seeing a raft near, I struggled onward, 
Gulping the sea and being gulped by it. 
But finding arms at last that drew my burden 
And me from horror to half-swooning safety. 

I could have died, I think, of the relief. 
But the moon came again, nakedly out. 
As if to see what she had done. Then I, 
Bending over the form that I had fought for, 



THE COLONEL'S STORY 23 

And chafing it, saw . . . not her I loved! 
Infinite Cruelty, not her I loved! . . , 
But that pale girl, with the eyes of all disaster. 

Oh, yes, I raved, and said God was a Hun, 
A Kaiser, of a Universe that loathed him. 
And back, too, would have leapt, into the waves. 
But the same hands that saved were ready to hold 
me. 



PEACE TRIUMPHANT! 

(November, 1918) 

Earth, Mother Earth, do you feel light flowing, 
Peace-light, waited so vainly and long? 
Feel the great blood-eclipse guiltily going, 
Swept from your face by a tide too strong? 
Over your rim is the bright flood rilling, 
Singing thro air, and under the seas. 
Never since birth was such a beam-spilling. 
Never such warmth, such healing and ease! 
Wildly it wraps you; and oh, your children 
Open their heart-gates to the glad rays! 
Blood-gloom there was, and blindness and hating, 
Now there is wonder, relief and amaze. 

Earth, Mother Earth, it will loose away from you, 
Pestilence, famine, horror and pain. 
24 



PEACE TRIUMPHANT 25 

Cleanse, and of loathed inhumanity calm you, 
Giving your veins well-being again! 
Sleep shall come back to your cities, chalets, 
To ships in the night when the watch-bell sounds; 
Sleep, the one opiate soothing Nature 
Sleeplessly pours upon mortal wounds. 
Sleep in the night and peace in the morning! 
Under their cool, strong febrifuge, 
Soon shall you swing again, thro clear ether, 
Hopeful — tho the price paid be huge ! 

Swathingly, too, shall delight surge back to you ! 
For, like an incantation divine, 
News that the Slaughter-Sway, so black to you, 
Ceases, shall run to your heart like wine. 
Visions shall steal to your breast, ecstatic: 
Fathers again, by a fond home fire; 
Lovers, in green lanes meeting to murmur 
To the white stars their starry desire! 
Visions of cities that rise, from ruin. 
Proud to have given their life for a Gleam; 



26 PEACE TRIUMPHANT 

Lordlier rise, in glory and story, 
Over the grave of War's last dream ! 

Yes, Mother Earth, you have suffered; but sorrow 
Has brought you at last what it alone can. 
Races you had, that raged; but tomorrow 
Men on your sphere shall behold but man. 
Nations you had, — all strifefully claiming 
Food at your breast, and place in your arms, 
Isles that bejewelled you, and broad empire 
Over your lesser children-swarms. 
Nations you had; but now to one nation 
Fast they are merging — ready to say. 
For the first time, there is but one mother 
Of men — to be cherished by them alway ! 



THRESHOLDS 

Each moment is a threshold, each day and hour and 

year, 
Of what has been, of what shall be, of what shall 

disappear. 
And thro them slips the Universe, with still or 

throbbing tread, 
From the mystery of the living, to the mystery of 

the dead. 

Each moment is a threshold, that leads invisibly 

To grief that glooms, joy that looms, to dull satiety. 

We pass to them with passion, and out of them 
with peace. 

And all the way is struggle, or rapture — and re- 
lease. 

27 



28 THRESHOLDS 

Each moment is a threshold, to Being's House of 

Breath, 
Or to the void, silence-cloyed, in Being's House of 

Death; 
But all we know of either in these words has been 

said, 
" Today we 're with the living, tomorrow with the 

dead." 

Each moment is a threshold, but God is in the 

House, 
God too, we think, somehow to link the Morrows 

with the Nows. 
Or if He is not, marvel ! For man himself is God, 
Seeing a world that should be, within a soulless 

clod. 



MILLICENT PASSES 

Don't let him be my pall bearer, don't let him! . . 
Yes, do! For I have loved . . . only him! 
But him ! . . . give me the morphia . . . And so 
Altho I did, then, marry the other, 
That half-man, half-squirrel in the cage 
Of his small ego spun by smug conceit. 
The man I love must bear me to the grave — 
At the coffin's head, upon the left side, 
That he may know how heavy my heart was. 
— What a life! what . . , what a life! 
And I was beautiful! . . . give me the morphia . . 
With brow and lips and eyes made to delight, 
And with such joy to ripple in my laughter, 
You have said so yourself, as only the lark 
Winging can take the heart with — such wild joy: 
Yet all so vain to hold him that I loved! 
29 



30 MILLICENT PASSES 

— And why, why, I ask . . , appeaselessly ! 
Another woman has, and he is happy, 
Breathing in life as if it were a fragrance: 
While I for ten years watched that spinning cage 
Of the other whom I loathed — that squirrel soul, 
Which could not fancy why my heart grew bitter, 
And why I wanted to tear the sky to pieces 

And strangle the world in it; or why I pined, 
Altho all saw ray love ... of one who now 
Shall help — but that! — to lay me under earth. 
But that ! . . . And yet, let him : on the left side. 
Where my dead heart with woe will be so heavy 
That it shall weight him down remembering. 

— What a life! what . . . what a life! 

A childhood torn by temper, rapture, tears j 
A girlhood by delirious ideals. 
Love — a happy day or two in the woods, 
The enchanted woods of it, thro which we pass 
And find our peace, or wander and are lost. 
Knowledge, then, that bliss is brevity. 
Then marriage to that other, at whose side 



MILLICENT PASSES 31 

In the bed of earth I now must go to lie . . . 
Tho it is false, I say ! . . . give me the morphia . . . 
That I first broke his heart, as mine is broken, 
And sent him there ! False ! ... He but wore out, 
Spinning within his little ego-cage 
Of glib desires, that led to vanity: 
A cage so wearisome that when I lie 
In the earth by him and feel it spinning round, 
I shall scream out to God, if God there be, 
To let me forth, to set me free of him: 
For the shame of couching there will be so much 
That should the other send me death-flowers, 
And the wreaths of them touch me, even thro 
The coffin . . . they will wither, if they are lilies. 
Before the funeral words are spent. But if . . . 
If they are roses, and one is not white. 
Lay them upon my breast . . . give me the morphia. 
— What a life! What . . . what a death! 
Yet I could sing once — and was beautiful ! — 
Sing! . . . melodies blossomed at my lips. 
But were birds, too, ill-mated, they would cease 



32 MILLICENT PASSES 

In time to sing, they too — and boughs become 

As bare of music as my breast of peace . . . 

Which he I love will never cease to know, 

For still he loves music ! , . . And when he bears me 

Out of those doors, will hear, perhaps, the strains 

Of that great funeral march — Chopin's, I played 

him — 
Sounding within his soul's deep sadnesses — 
Hear, but only, only as if for another. 
Unless he feels my dead heart's heaviness. 
— It is too much ! too much ! , . . give me the 

morphia . . . 
Not merely I should die, but all the living. 
All earth's abortive millions should lie down 
And say, " Whoever made us, God or Chance, 
Has but mismade us! " Then tliere would not 

surge 
That crying out for love that never comes, 
True-mated love for all: which of all things 
Can keep faith's universe from falling apart, 
And prove God is the mystery that binds it. 



MILLICENT PASSES 33 

Yet he I loved ... he that I love, believes: 
So I too must not pass from life unpraying. 
Our Father, which art in Heaven . . . give me the 
morphia . . . 



THE BROKEN WINGS OF THE YEARS 

You have broken the wings of the years, O Death! 
Because they were all too swift with joy. 
They fly no more from breath to breath 
Of happiness by, but trail and cloy. 
They fly no more — as the golden plover 
Flies, from the tundra's icy hover, 
Far, far south, with never a pause. 
To palmy zones of the Panamas. 

You have broken the wings of the years — alas! 
So now their pinions, shaped to soar, 
Can only falteringly pass, 
With no goal left on any shore. 
They flutter along from hour to hour 
With no nest left in any bower: 
Migrants ever from care to care, 
Coming no whence to go no where! 
34 



THE BROKEN WINGS OF THE YEARS 35 
You have broken the wild wings of the years. 
No more they weather the gales of woe, 
But sink — sodden with sorrow's tears, 
Or veer with all despairs that blow. 
Too often out of the misty welter 
Of doubt do they in vain seek shelter; 
Too, too often fold with the night 
In sleep unfain of any light! 



SEA-HOARDINGS 

My heart is open again and the sea flows in, 

It shall fill with a summer of mists and winds and 

clouds and waves breaking, 
Of gull-wings over the green tide, of the surf's 

drenching din. 
Of sudden horizon-sails that come and vanish, 

phantom-thin. 
Of arching sapphire skies, deep and unaching. 

I shall lie on the rocks just over the weeds that 

drape 
The clear jiea-pools, where birth and death in the 

sunny ooze are teeming. 
Where the crab in quest of booty sidles about, a 

sullen shape, 

36 



SEA-HOARDINGS 37 

Where tlie snail creeps and the mussel sleeps with 

wary valves agape, 
Where life is too grotesque to be but seeming. 

And tlie swallow shall weave my dreams with threads 

of flight, 
A shuttle with silver breast across the warp of the 

waves gliding; 
And an isle far out shall be a beam in the loom of 

my delight, 
And the pattern of every dream shall be a rapture 

bathed in light — 
Its evanescence a beauty most abiding. 

And the sunsets shall give sadness all its due, 

They shall stain the sands and trouble the tides 
with all the ache of sorrow. 

They shall bleed and die with a beauty of mean- 
ing old yet ever new, 

They shall bum with all the hunger for things that 
hearts have failed to do, 

They shall whisper of a gold that none can borrow. 



38 SEA-HOARDINGS 

And the stars shall come and build a bridge of fire 

For the moon to cross the boundless sea, with never 

a fear of sinking. 
They shall teach me of the magic things of life never 

to tire, 
And how to renew, when it is low, the lamp of my 

desire — 
And how to hope, in the darkest deeps of thinking. 



WANTING THE MOON 

" Don't cry, don't cry for the moon ! " 
Her restive heart would croon; 
Her restive heart of delights and fears, 
Of laughter tangled amid her tears,. 
*' Don't cry for the moon! " 

For she wanted the moon herself; wanted 
The shimmering moon of wealth and love, 
The moon of rank and fame that haunted 
The heavens above her. 
She wanted the moon, and so would sing 
To any, with odd caprice, " Don't cry ! 
Don't cry for the moon! " — betraying 
Her own appeaseless sigh. 

" Don't cry, don't cry for the moon! " 
It broke her peace at last. 
39 



40 WANTING THE MOON 

It broke her mind and it broke her heart, 
And she died in a place that is set apart 
For the moon-criers — who do not know 
That the moon 's for none — only its glow ; 
Only its even radiance, cast 
On all, with aimless art. 



K'U-KIANG 

Because the sun like a Chinese lantern 
Set in a temple of clouds tonight, 
I was back in K'u-Kiang! 

Because in a temple of dragon clouds, 

As if with incense misty red, 

It hung there over the rim of the sea, 

I was back in a narrow street, 

Where amber faces pass all day, 

Going to pay, going to pray, 

Going tlie same old human way 

They have gone for a thousand years, men say, 

In K'u-Kiang. 

And I heard the coolie cry for his fare, 
I heard the merchant praise his ware 
41 



42 K'U-KIANG 

Of bronze and porcelain set to snare, 

In K'u-Kiang! 

I saw strange streaming signs in black 

With gold and crimson on their back — 

Opiate signs in an opiate street; 

Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet 

Is old as the sun; 

And the temple door 

As cool and dark as the night. 

And where dim lanterns, swinging there, 

As a lure to human grief and care, 

Half reveal and half conceal 

The ancestral gloom of the gods, 

I saw all this with sudden pang, 
As if by hashish swept or bhang, 
Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern, 
Set in a temple of clouds! 



THE OLD PIONEERS 

The frontiers freeze before us, 

Now youth is left behind, 
Tho once they ever lured us 
To braver vaster valley-lands. 
The ice of them is round us, 

A hope-arresting rind; 
Our feet must travel slower, 
And slower thaw the mind. 
The frontiers freeze before us, 
The dead leaves shiver round us. 
Our breath is less within us, 
The way is hard to find. 

The frontiers freeze before us: 
They once were blossoming 
With faith and virid vision 
Like faery and enchanted lands, 
43 



44 THE OLD PIONEERS 

The bliss of youth was on us, 

And every dream could bring 
Such ardency as melted 

All fear that fate could fling. 
The frontiers freeze before us, 
The sun sets sooner round us, 
The night is darker in us, 
Our hearts forget to sing. 

The frontiers freeze before us. 
And will not melt again. 

But ever shut us closer 

Within the narrow bounds of them. 

So now there 's only left us 
The half-way things of men, 

The staked claim kept securely, 
The aims that all may ken. 

The frontiers freeze before us, 

The long wait now is on us, 

Until death's frontier calls us 

To pass the final fen. 



A FLORIDA INTERLUDE 

(Naples-on-the-Gulf) 

I 

Behind me lie the Everglades, 

The mystic grassy Everglades, 

Where the moccasin and the Seminole glide 

In secret silent Indian ways. 

Before me lies the Gulf, 

The cup of blue bright tropic waters. 

Held to the parched lips of the South 

To cool and quench its thirst. 

Behind me lie the Everglades, 
Before me lies the Gulf, 
Which the sunset soon shall change to wine, 
A Eucharist for the longing soul. 
45 



46 A FLORIDA INTERLUDE 

Its rim of land shall be transformed 
To Mexic opal and chrysoprase, 
And then shall come the moon 
As calm as a thought of Christ. 

As calm as a thought of Christ — 
Over the cup's sand-rim enchased 
With palm and pine, Floridian friends, 
Saying their twilight litanies; 
While homeward flies the heron 
To his island cypress in the swamp. 
Which Spanish mosses drape and the moon 
Silverly soothes to peace, 

II 

Behind me lie the Everglades, 

Where the bittern wails to the moon's face. 

Peace is gone as I wake 

And memory in me wails 

From the primal swamp, Heredity, 

Wlicnce I have come with all the desires 



A FLORIDA INTERLUDE 47 

Of creeping, walking, flying things, 
To creep or walk or fly. 

With all the desires of the earth-creatures; 

Yet with a want transcendent, 

A want that comes with the glimmer of stars 

And pierces to ray heart. 

A want of the life I have not known, 

Of the life unknowable, 

In the Everglades of the Universe 

Where the Great Spirit glides. 



NAQUITA 

" Naquita," he said, " Naquita, 
But one thing do I ask: 
Bear my dust to the wide plains 
And scatter it to the four winds, 
That it may ride the mesas, 
The buttes and the red arroyas, 
And not be shut in a small tomb, 
An inn for all comers — 
Whose host, tlie harrowing worm, 
Sets no fare fortli at all, 
Save for himself, but silence." 

And so I took his body 
Of death-made alabaster 
And bore it, in obedience. 
To the place of cruel burning. 
4S 



NAQUITA 49 

I gave his lips to a flame 
Stronger than any passion, 
And his eyes, that held wide heaven 
And all eternity for me. 
And I went back to the mesas — 
Bearing the world — and God — 
In a little urn of dust. 

And then — oh hunger of love ! — 
I was stricken and could not do it. 
" If I scatter his dust," I said, 
" I scatter my soul to madness. 
For if his heart were blowing 
On the windy buttes and mesas 
My heart would follow after. 
But here in a grief-gray urn 
I still can hear it beating, 
I still can clasp it to me. 
He still must wait to ride! 

" For a little while must wait, 
Till the flame shall take me too, 



so NAQUITA 

And our twin dusts commingled 
On the swift mount of the wind 
Shall follow all trails that flesh 
Can never, never follow. 
Yes, over the Plains hurtle 
Afar, flame-wedded atoms: 
Till the last wind shall cease, 
And dust no more be dust, 
And life and death be one." 



AFTER THEIR PARTING 

(A Woman Speaks) 

You know that rock on a rocky coast, 
Where the moon came up, a ruined ghost, 
Distorted until her shape almost 

Seemed breaking? 
Came up like a phantom silently 
And dropped her shroud on the red night sea, 
Then walked, a spectral mystery, 

Unwaking ? 

You know how, sudden, there came a change. 
When she had left the sea's low range, 
Its lurid crimson, stark and strange, 

Behind her? 
How, sudden, her silver self shone thro, 
51 



52 AFTER THEIR PARTING 

Tranquilly free of the earth's stained hue, 
And found a way where the clouds were few 
To bind her? 

You know this? Then go back some day, 
When I have gone the moonless way, 
To that dark rock whereon we lay 

And waited; 
And when the moon has arisen free, 
Your soiling doubt shall fall from me, 
And eased of unrest your heart shall be, 

And sated. 



LIFE'S ANSWER 

A stroke of lightning stabbed the storm-black sea, 
As if it sought the heart of Life thereunder, 
And meant to put an end to it utterly; — 

Then came thunder — 

Wildly applauding thunder. 

Riven with fear the foam-crests ran before it, 
Hissed by the rain and beaten down to darkness. 
A gull rose out of the murk with wings that tore it — 
Life's answer to the storm's terrible starkness. 



53 



HER HERO 

" There 's not a flower of April but shall ring me 

A wedding hell," her bridal heart said, 

" A wxdding bell of bliss when he comes home. 

And if they bring me 

His name among the dead, 

I shall not go in grief — only but in pride 

rh:i{ ho shrank not, but as a hero died! " 

So to her task she bent; till, it befell: 

They brought her his name, set to the brief kncll, 

" Somewhere in France, dead." 

And tho a shell of burning anguish 

Shattered her soul's trenches, 

Her pride tremorless towered,. 



54 



HER HERO 55 

Vet there in France, at tlic grey break of dawn, 
A firing-squad, with faces fixt and drawn, 
Had only set her " hero " against a wall 
And, at a comnund . . . sliot him, for a coward. 



AN AVIATOR'S MOTHER 

I wake in the night, 

And sudden my eyes grope, 

High thro the dark of the battle-fields, 

For the place where he is flying 

Thro thin perilous ether. 

In cold dizzy heights 

Over the foe I see him, 

His soaring plane in a swirl of clouds hidden, 

And he, my little boy, 

Who once crawled at my feet, 

Nor dared to take three steps across my chamber, 

He the eagle soul of it! 

Ah yes, I see and hear him, 
There in the earthless chill, 
Witli iron talons ready 

56 



AN AVIATOR'S MOTHER 57 

To release swift bombs on sleeping Rhine cities. 
And tho I know 
That some of them may fall 
On simple homes where children dream 
As once he dreamt beside me, 
I cry him on thro the sky's sickening hazard — 
That Freedom may not perish, 
And a myriad mart}T mother -hearts 
In the years to come be wakened 
By the high whirring wings that mean destruction. 
I cry him on! 
And yet how terrible 

That out of the nest even the young must spring 
To be — thus — Humanity's wild war-eagles I 



WINTER FLOODS 

Half under the flood are the trees by the river, 

The wind is not happy, 

The branches shiver, 
The dark ice-floes are hurrying down 

Like heaps of heavy death. 
The hills, bro^vn-hazed, with the trees treniblc, 

The sun is dazed 

And the clouds dissemble. 
Spent is my trust, and longing rust 

My heart with every breath. 

Half under the flood are tlie trees — and in them 

Crows that scold 

At the skies and din them. 
Worn is the wind and writhen tlie waves 

With the trouble of tales he tells. 
58 



WINTER FLOODS 59 

A skiff unmoored from its cove is skirling, 

Oarless and aimless, 

Mutely whirling — 
Even as thoughts, unmoored in me, 

On a tide that mystery swells. 

Half under the flood are the trees — and bushes 

Drowned deep 

In the drift that pushes. 
Out of them whirrs, migrant again, 

The wild duck's watery wing. 
" Swift to the South ! " my heart cries after 

Her strained flight 

With a strained laughter. 
For I am chilled, I am winter-filled. 

An exile far frwn the Spring! 



DAWN-BLISS 

( Naples-on-the-Gulf) 

I went out at da^^-n, 
Pelicans were fishing, 
Big-beaked, gre)' and brown; 
Little waves were swishing. 
Clouds creamed the sky, 
As shells creamed the shore; 
Wild aery hues of beauty 
Round seemed to pour! 

I went out at dawn, 
Pelicans were floating, 
Big beaks on their breasts; 
Up the sun came boating. 
"Ship ahoy!" I cried, 
60 



DAWN-BLISS . 61 

To his golden sail. 
Bliss-winds of beauty in me 
Broke — to a gale! 

I went out at dawn, 

Pelicans were winging. 

Palms waved passion plumes, 

Beach sands were singing. 

Stripped, save of strength, 

I plunged into the sea 

And swam, till the bliss of beauty 

Died away in me. 



FAIR FLORIDA 

O sweet is the earth in Florida, 

The darkies croon all winter in the clearing. 

The wind sighs a day-long cheery Ah! 

A sound in the palms worth hearing. 

And the sun there never seems to hurry, 

The night never comes too soon, 

And easy from the heart slips worry. 

When the moon comes stealing there, the moon, 

When the moon comes stealing in Florida ! 

The gold of the orange in Florida 
Hangs round and ripe all winter in the clearing. 
And rarely the soul breathes a weary Ah! 
For little has the world worth fearing. 
The firefly summers in December, 
62 



FAIR FLORIDA 63 

And toil, there, is never too long, 
And the heart all day can remember 
How the moon comes stealing with a song, 
How the moon comes stealing in Florida 1 



TO A SUICIDE 

How did you like your grave last night, 
Did you sleep well, my friend? 

There was cover enough for you, I know, 

For over the earth was laid the snow; 

And only a while did the wind blow. 
Or the trees bend. 

How (lid you like the grave you made. 

To slip into from life? 
Had it the quiet that you sought? 
The silence, free of sound and thought? 
The isolation undistraught 

By the old strife? 

And was it empty, as you believed, 
Of sense, of soul, of God? 
64 



TO A SUICIDE 65 

Was there no reckoning — or rue ? 
Were you with all at last quite thro? 
Nothing to want? nothing to do? 
Only the clod? 

Or was there Something there which bade 

You rise and walk afar? 
Out of the shroud, out of the flesh, 
Out of the earth's soul-tripping mesh, 
Rise and start with strength afresh 

On a new star ? 

That were impossible, you thought — 

Sure but of sleeping well. 
Yet while a bud awakes in May, 
While darkness blossoms into day, 
While life seems more than atom-sway, 

Who can tell ? 



I KNOW YOUR HEART, O SEA! 

I know your heart, O Sea! 

You are tossed with cold desire to flood earth ut- 
terly; 

You run at the cliffs, you fling wild billows at 
beaches, 

You reach at islands with fingers of foam to crum- 
ble them; 

Yes, even at mountain tops you shout your purpose 

Of making the earth a shoreless circle of waters! 

I know your surging heart! 

Tides mighty and all^contemptuous rise within it. 

Tides spurred by the wind to champ and charge 

and thunder — - 
Tho the sun and moon rein them — 
At the troubling land, the breeding-place •£ mortals, 
66 



I KNOW YOUR HEART, O SEA ! 67 

Of men who arc ever transmuting life to spirit, 
And ever taking your salt to savor their tears. 

I know your tides, I know them! 

*' Down," they rage, " with the questing of men, and 
crying ! 

With their continents — cradles of grief and de- 
spair! 

Better entombing waters for them, better our deeps 
imfathomed, 

Where birth is soulless, life goalless, death toll-less 
for all, 

And where dark ooze enshrouds past resurrection! " 

Ah yes, I know your heart ! 

I have heard it raving at coast-lights set to reveal 

you, 
I liave watched it foam at ships that souglit to defy 

you, 
I have seen it straining at cables that cross you, 

bearing whispers hid to you, 



68 I KNOW YOUR HEART, O SEA! 

Or heaving at waves of the air that tell your hur- 
ricanes. 

I know, I know your heart! 

Men you will sink, and shores will sing; but a shore 

shall be man's forever, 
From whence his lighthouse soul shall signal the 

Infinite, 
Whose fleets go by, star after star, bearing their 

unknown burden 
To a Port which only eternity shall determine! 



NOX MIRABILIS 

I wonder if earth is led at night by spirits, 

That swim in space before it, 

As was our ship that night on the Red Sea, 

When dolphins swam in the phosphorescent bow- 
wash, 

With a beauty of body-motion more than earthly, 

And lured us on, with a lithe and ghostly radiance, 

In and out and under, magically; 

And when stars hung so humid in the heavens 

As to make their soft immeasurable spaces 

Seem but another phosphorescent sea, 

With the pointed bow of the moon-boat pushing thro 
them? 

I wonder if earth is beautifully led so? 
For if it be, I will ask of destiny 
69 



TO NOX MIRABILIS 

To let me, when I am changed into a spirit, 

Swim at its bow, shaking a luminous sense 

Of mystery and etliereal magic back 

To those who have taken passage from tlie port 

Of Birth, thro tlie Red Sea of Life, to Death. 



FLUTTERERS 

In the moist flowing midnight of our garden 
Does the firefly, who lights, there, its sundial, 
Of time's silent mystic numbers know? 
As little as do we of heaven's dial, 
Which faint eternal star-flies enkindle 
With constellated wandering and glow! 

At our mute open window does the grey moth, 
Who beats toward a warm sense of brightness, 
Conceive the vastity of life's desire? 
Less tlian do we — whom love's elusive urgence 
Ever allures with wings of want to flutter 
Toward Life's unappeasive blossom-fire I 



71 



SHIPS AND THE SEA 

I have been thinking of ships and the sea again, 

Ships and the sea! 
Of flooding surf and joy to be free again, 

Fever- free. 
I have been thinking of white foam blowing, 
Of gulls dipping, of tides flowing, 
I have been longing for winds past knowing 

To wing by me ! 

I have been thinking of white sails vanishing 

On the blithe blue, 
Till from my heart their beauty is banishing 

Care's harsh hue. 
Till I can hear in the wave's far ringing 
The changeless, charmed, ineffable singing 
72 



SHIPS AND THE SEA 73 

Of Life, the siren immortal, flinging 
Spells ever new. 

I have been thinking of ships and the moon again, 

Ships and the stars! 
Of swinging bows and a world in tune again, 

Of tall spars 
That point toward ports that are dreams — till wak- 
ing 
At dawn there comes, on the glad gaze breaking, 
Ultimate peace from a green palm shaking 

By coral bars. 



IMPERTURBABLE 

Three times the fog rolled in today, a silent shroud, 
From which the breakers ran like ghosts, moaning 

and tumbling. 
Three times a startled sea-bird cried aloud, 
On the wind stumbling. 

But I cast my net witli never a fear, tho wraiths in 

me 
And birds of wild unrest were stirring and starting 

and crying. 
For I knew that under the sway of every sea 
There is calm lying. 



74 



A TRAVELLER, LOOKING BACK 

My heart was sick to see them 
In all their mingled wonder, 
The Orient lands and peoples, 
And so at last — I went. 
And now I 'm like a lover 

Whose first love long has faded, 
Yet who would give all glory 
To feel its fire unspent. 

To feel, as then, dawn hueing 

The snows of Fugiyama 

To immaterial ruby, 

Then to a priestly white. 
To watch the amber evening, 
With crimson sun setting, 
Along the walls and towers 
That gave Pekin its might. 
75 



76 A TRAVELLER. LOOKING BACK 

To see the first palm swaying 
In strange Kualalumpur, 
To hear the wind-bells tinkle 
On stranger Shwe-Dagohn. 
To watch along Sumatra 
The Bay of Bengal counting 
Its fevered pulsing surf-beat 
With timeless undertone. 

To gaze, then, where Benares, 
With ghats and temples shining, 
With saints and yogi surging 
Resounds to Vedic h>'mns; 
Where Taj Mahal's three bubbles 
Blown magic on the morning 
Bewitch the road to Agra, 
That in enchantment swims, 

And, last, behold the Sphinx smile 
To Egypt and Sahara, 
Or the eternal tenting 
Of Pharaoh's pyramids. 



A TRAVELLER, LOOKING BACK 77 

Or, down the Mount of Olives, 
Toward the Gate called Golden, 
Watch how the Slavic pilgrim 
So reverently thrids. 

To see — as once I saw them ! . . , 
Ah, not in any faring 
To phantom-far Sumatra, 
To Shwe-Dagohn or Taj, 
Shall I again recapture 
The first keen quivering magic 
That for a mystic season 
Made all else seem mirage. 



A CHANCE ENCHANTMENT 

In far-off China I heard it, 

As we paused by a city of the desert, 

Whose hosts of sand, blown ever by the wind, 

Climbed high over crenelated battlements 

That had beaten off Genghis Khan. 

And it fell upon the air there softly, 

A low eerie Orient tinkle . . . 

And I never shall know from whence it came. 

From what strange thing with what strange name: 

But even as a dewdrop catches the sky 

It seemed to have caught the vast numb cry 

Of the ancient sorrow of China. 

It seemed to have caught, in a single tone, 

A sorrow, a beauty, an alien moan 

That never will let my heart alone 

"8 



A CHANCE ENCHANTMENT 79 

Till the sands of time sweep over it. 
In far-off China I heard it, 
Where the desert winds go by! 



HERAT 

The city of Herat 

Has five great gates; 

The Kandahar, the Hutab-chak, 

The Malik and Irak; 

And on the east the Kushk Gate, 

Thro which the sun came, 

"When Herat was a splendor 

And not a ruin's name. 

The city of Herat 
Has four great walls, 
For caravans and strange bazaars, 
For mosques and tall minars, 
For sepulchres of saints and khans 
In gardens strewn with streams — 
80 



HERAT SI 

Whose names are now forgotten, 
Or but as dreams of dreams. 

The city of Herat 
Is one mile square, 
But one — yet all the bales of fate 
Have entered in its every Gate, 
Have crowded in its four walls 
And gone the ways of time; 
And now Herat knows only 
That it has been sublime. 



A MOHAMMEDAN TO THE MOON 

It is well, oh houri of Allah, 

That you draw an aery veil 

Of silver over your face, 
Lest I should gaze too long 
At a beauty overstrong, 

And so become unfitted 

For a mere human place. 

It is well that, in His harem, 
You lean from a lattice of stars 
I never can hope to climb. 

For were I lifted near 

To your loveliness, I fear 
My soul would seek to ravish 
You from Him, O Sublime! 
82 



A MOHAMMAD AN TO THE MOON 83 

It is well, oh houri of Allah! 

And so I do but pray 

That you tell Him this for me: 
That never within the sky, 
His palace, do I espy 

Your shape, without adoring 

In you His deity! 



A PRIEST'S SONG 

(India) 

Mango wood and deodar wood 
And sandalwood and aloe wood 
Are sweet and good to make incense 

For any temple shrine; 
And crystal from the camphor tree 
Distilled, with rose and patchouli; 
But better than these are simple thoughts 

Of hearts that are divine — 
Of hearts that look on life and say 
With fragrant pity night or day, 
" My brother's grief and woe, I know, 

Are, even as well, mine! " 



84 



NIPPONESE 

A dim inleted coast 

Where pine-trees tend on temples 

That look out over the sea 

For the sun 's coming and moon 's going, 

For wind and rain and snow, 

Whose elemental voices worship 

Thro the encircling year. 

And out on the sea a sampan 
Floating, as if awaiting 
To bear away from the temples 
The pleadings of the importunate. 
The incense of their yearnings, 
The offerings of their toil and pain, 
The flowing of their tears. 



85 



A WORD'S MAGIC 

Do you remember Etajima, 
And how, upon a moon- fogged sea, 
As ghostl}^ as ever a tide shall be, 
We passed an island silently? 

And how a low voice in the gloom 
Of the temple pine-trees leaning there 
Said say on ar a to one somewhere 
Unseen in the shadow-haunted air? 

Just sayonara: but it seemed 
The soul of all farewells that night, 
The sigh of all withdrawn delight, 
The sound of love's last rapture-rite. 

And now, after long years, it comes 
Again from isles of memory 
86 



A WORD'S MAGIC 87 

To bring once more to birtli in me 
The breath of all lost witchery. 

Yes, one low word of parting, now 
Echoing, thro the fog of years, 
Has touched my heart with beauty's tears, 
And youth thro all things reappears. 



A CHARM TO BRING CHILDREN 

(Egypt, 100 A. D.) 

Take twelve leaves of the male palm 

And write on each the name of a god. 

Wed each leaf to a lotus bloom 

And bind the twain to a bulrush rod. 

Walk with the stem betwixt your breasts 

By the flooding Nile when the young moon shows, 

Shadowy-pregnant, over the night. 

Then — making the sign of Horus — 

Thrice to the left and thrice to the right — 

Call to the wind of the Desert, 

Great is the lady Isis! 



88 



HEARTS TO MEND 

Said the warm South Wind, 
*' Have you any hearts to mend? 
I have salt from the sea, 
I have solder from the sun, 
I can make them good as new, 
(Have you any hearts to mend?) 
They shall hold again the dew 
Of youth when I am done ! 

" Have you any hearts to mend? 
I have come from the South, 
And a heart that is sad 
Or asunder with the years, 
I can make as good as new, 
(Have you any hearts to mend?) 
Hearts rent with fate or rue, 
Hearts torn with throbbing fears? 
89 



90 HEARTS TO MEND 

" I can heal them all again. 
I have salt from the sea, 
I have solder from the sun 
For the broken or the worn. 
I can make them good as new, 
(Have you any hearts to mend?) 
I 've the skill of dreams come true 
For the wretchedest who mourn! 



HUNGER 

The million twigs of the trees are black, against the 

gray of the twilight. 
Only the slender moon is alive and slips thro them 

away. 
All else is wintry numb, 
All else is wintry dumb, 
For even the squirrel knows that he cannot dig his 

earth-hid store, 
So hard is the frost; but keeps to his hole and does 

not peep from the door. 
I alone am hunting food — for my soul, in the 

faded sky-light, 
I alone walk with the moon till she glides behind 

the day. 

Food, and want of love, are the never-ending needs 

that haunt us, 

91 



92 HUNGER 

Love I have and food — but the mind and heatt 

and soul are strange. 
Their hungers sweep from afar; 
They crave a dream or a star; 
They crave a food that neither winter nor spring 

nor autumn hold, 
That words can never, in all the worlds where 

speech has bloomed, unfold. 
Nor shall an eternity have satieties enough to daunt 

us, 
Life's inexhaustible mystery still will make our 

hunger range. 



JUDGMENT 

(During a BUzzard) 

Today the City has put on ermine 
And sits in the court of its thoughts 
To judge if the Wind, whose icy dagger 
Is piercing the life of the poor, 
Is chief of the cold conspirators 
In league with the felon, Death. 
And the sentence is: Not guiUy, 
Tho word newly has come 
Of a child bitterly frozen 
At a mother's milkless breast. 
For the City, judging, knows 
That not the Wind, but itself, 
And itself alone is the murderer. 



93 



MY NEIGHBOR 

I did not know my neighbor. Two back yards 
And an alley were the gulf that lay between us. 
His face across that gulf I had not seen; 
Only his lighted windows sent towards 
My window all his wonted ways of living, 
Dull, as they seemed; perhaps a little mean. 
He was no more to me than shapes that give 
A shadowy human fringe to thought's existence. 
He could have died and I should not have missed 
More than his movements, vague and fugitive. 
— Then came the crashing horror of his fate. 
He had walked there with passions in him burning 
Such as made (Edipus of the gods learn 
To count no man, till death, as fortunate ; 
He had grown plants within his kitchen garden 
While tragedy grew in him desolate: 
94 



MY NEIGHBOR 95 

Grew till he could no more its twine retard, 
But tangled in the tendrils that wound fiery 
About his heart — the tendrils of desire — 
Had cried aloud, and then, with lips set hard 

— Had gone to a drab rendezvous of sin 
To meet again his mistress, whom in frenzy 
He fancied false to him; as passion when 
Remorseful will; and told her she had been 
For the last time a lure and should no longer 
Be let to live and snare the lust of men. 
And so, tho her eyes pled against the wrong, 

Had kissed her, cursed her, shot her — then, sore 

weeping, 
Himself: meaning to put all sin to sleep 
Past any pain's distress, however strong. 

— But in this too had failed ; for even as she 
Did death prove but a weak perfidious wanton, 
Turning the bullet from his brain aslant 

Into his eyes that never more shall see. 

So doubly now in prison lies my neighbor, 

In that of blindness and of felony. 



96 MY NEIGHBOR 

Which ended what, you see, was like a play 

For me — since two back yards and one small alley 

Sufficed for a gulf, an infinite interval, 

Between men made by God in the same way. 



CHANT TERRESTRIAL 

How old on the spheral earth is man ? 
How long was it ere a sudden thought 
Severed him from his brother-beasts, 

Taught him to walk, 

Taught him to talk? 
How old is he on the spheral earth? 
How old shall he be when earth is cold 
And gives to the dead moon ray for ray 
Of blue chill phosphorescent mould? 

How old on the spheral earth is man? 
Does he a thousand earths in space 
Inhabit, and, uncertain why, 

Face to the sky, 

Face, and die? 
How old is he on the spheral earth ? 
97 



98 CHANT TERRESTRL\L 

How old shall he be when time has rolled 
Across Creation's birth-expanse 
The last star life and death enfold ? 



AN INTERIOR 

Because you cannot sit with me 
And read a book when night has come, 
But press your hands upon your breast 
And give your eyes to all unrest. 
Because at windows and at doors 
You glance, and wait the least wind-tap 
Of pines against the prescient pane, 
And if it does not come are fain. 
Suddenly starting from your chair. 
To go and see what may be there, — 
I know that you can only care 
For that which is not anywhere. 

For that which calls without a voice, 
For that which moves witliout a shape, 
For that which wills without a choice ; 
For passion that is yet escape. 
99 



THE COURTESAN 

I sell my body to all men, 
Even the priest has purchased it, 
With such an ecstasy, I swear, 
As he denies the Infinite. 
No crucifix has ever known 
Such kisses as my lips enthrone. 
And since I can from thence divine 
That men, who are the " sons of God," 
Most worship at the flesh's shrine, 
I can be sure, beyond distrust, 
Of one truth more. That God is Lust. 



100 



THE SISTERS 

Three tall chimneys out of my window rise, 

Like the Fates, tlie daughters of Night, 

With the smoky tangle of their hair about them. 

In the grey sky or tlie blue sky, 
In sun or rain or snow, 

They stand, blended together, shadowing human 
destiny. 

For one rises above the making of cradles, 
And one above the weaving of worldly raiment, 
And one, darkly apart, above the sad shaping of 

coffins 
For the frailty of those whose thread of life is 

shorn, 

101 



102 THE SISTERS 

Who are cut off swiftly, suddenly, 

And shrouded under the lasting garment of earth. 

Three tall chimneys out of ray window rise. 
Round them the city is born and lives and dies. 



HIS DREAM 

I saw a dead man yesterday 
With a dream frozen upon his lips. 
Like one made of immortal clay 
He lay: 

As if a vision vast and dim 
Had touched the heart and soul of him, 
As might the wings of seraphim 
In flight. 

Yet the one vision of his life 
Had only been, I found, 
To earn, by an unceasing strife, 
Ten dollars weekly for his wife! 



103 



MISTRESS IMMORTAL 

Ah, little moon ! 
When I see you there 
Enceinte in the West, 
Bearing a promise 
Of light to be, 
I know all lovers 
That beauty lures 
Have been, somehow, 
Your paramours. 
Little moon! 

For softly you enter 
The chambers of all 
Or meet them silverly 
In the wood — 
Where leaves, little poets 
104 



MISTRESS IMMORTAL 105 

Of the green trees, 
Are ever inspired 
By every breeze. . . . 
Or on the streets you accost them. 

And then there is nothing 

To do, if lonely, 

But give their passion 

To you only; 

To you, little moon, 

Little girl moon, 

Who lure all hearts — 

You only! 



TO RICHARD W. KNOTT 

{December 27, 1917) 

Dead, you are dead, my friend? 
Is all your being hushed ? 
Your mind of torrent might, 
Your heart of hot insight? 
Dead? Never again 
To fight as a man with men? 
Your soul so swiftly flushed 
Now into silence crushed? 

Dead? This is the end? 
No rising more at dawn 
To fling tense phrase and thought 
Onto the page, and on? 
No rising up to flash, 
106 



TO RICHARD W. KNOTT 107 

Out over the questing throng, 
The word that should be penned, 
The warning brave and strong? 

Dead? and the city round 
Now muffles low your name? 
Some with affection's knell, 
Some with regret or blame? 
Some with a lie, yet all 
With deep-enforced respect 
For a strength none could neglect? 
For a freedom none could tame? 

Dead? Oh, I am hurt, 

Who loved you, fought you, praised. 

I am hurt, and all amazed, 

And dazed, bitterly dazed. 

For friendship knows that death 

Will come, yet calls it crazed 

When one beloved is glazed 

So swiftly by its breath. 



108 TO RICHARD W. KNOTT 

Yes, I am hurt, hurt, 
And numbly know the loss, 
And how death's dreadest blow 
Comes ajter the grave's woe. 
For where shall I find years 
Again such ties to twine 
As bound your ways to mine? 
I shall not — well I know! 

Yet peace: your task is done. 
Full-hearted to the last. 
Citizen, lover, friend. 
Your laurels are amassed. 
Citizen, hater, foe. 
Thinker and scholar, go! 
And let who has not failed. 
Nor ever humanly ailed, 
Nor once a false hope hailed, 
Small honor to you show! 



CLAIRVOYANCE 

The clock, like a heart, beating in the night 

darkness, 
Is filling the house with the pale flow of time, 
That pulses plangently thro the thick silence 
Into each hall and chamber . . . 
And seems to waken the shadowy past 
And the voice of vanished voices, 
And the laughter of them and the sorrowing sighs 

and tears. 

And, like a clock, my heart is filling you, 
O body-house of me. 
With the flow of years that are gone: 
In every vein calling to life again 
Grey memory shapes vanished from sense and soul ; 
And out of the Nowhere softly strangely assembling 
Vain vibrances and voices of Nevermore. 
109 



NIGHTWARD 

The crake cries lone on the brink of the bog, 
The heron mounts from the mists of the pool, 
The time for the owl to see draws near, 
The time for the bat to flit in the cool. 

The stars grow ripe for the moon to reap. 
The hour of the moth is the hour of thought. 
Why is a leaf that lifts, and is still. 
With a sense of infinite sadness fraught? 



no 



A FLORIDA BOATING SONG 

Down thro Florida keys, 

From island, to island! 
DovvTi thro Florida keys, 
Where mangrove roots dip in the seas! 
A myriad tangled roots 

From each palmetto byland, 
Oyster-encrusted roots mid which 
The heron wades in the shallow shades! 

Down thro Florida keys, 

Around them, between them, 
Thro low green Florida keys, 
So low they scarce seem born of the seas! 
Where pouchy pelicans roost 

On cypresses that lean them 
Out over the idle lap of the tide 
That comes and goes with balmy flows! 
Ill 



112 A FLORIDA BOATING SONG 

Down thro Florida keys, 
Thro mazes on mazes 
Of ripple-encircled keys, 
Where sun and wind play as they please! 
Where the eaglet, high in air, 

Or the wild white, ibis, dazes 
Eyes that follow them up the blue, 
As the heart would do, the heart too! 

Down thro Florida keys 

I 'm going, I 'm going ! 
Thro low green Florida keys 
And greener glades of Florida seas! 
And this is all I know, 

That all in the world worth knowing 
Is joy like that of the tarpon's leap 
In air divine with the warm sunshine! 



UNFATHOMABLE 

On all the seas of space 
New worlds forever come, 
And old forever go, 
With mystic ebb and flow. 
On all the seas of life, 
There is such wax and wane 
Of mystery and pain 
As make us deeply know, — 

That not God's very self 
Can fathom the Universe: 
To Him as unto us 
It is incredulous. 
Such vastity it has 
That His infinitude 
Can only thro it brood 
And ask why it is thus. 
113 



AN EVENING ETCHING 

Little rivers at twilight, 
Little wintry rivers, 
Running between brown trees 
With mistletoed branches; 
Catching dark shivery shadows 
Of boughs into your bosoms, 
And a pale silvery star 
Between burnt clouds of gold . . ^ 

Little lowly rivers, 
How sad your spirit shimmers ! 
All the land's rainy loneliness 
Is running in your flow; 
While farm-lights faintly quiver 
And brown hills freeze about you 
And the music of the sheep-bells 
Falls silent in the fold. 
114 



A HEART'S CRY 

I think of mountains 
In lonely shapelessness 
Under the twilight 
Of far countries. 

I think of the drop 
Of precipices 
Thro deathly thousands 
Of feet of darkness, 

I think of the torrents 
That shatter the silence 
With tortured turbulence 
Far down in them. 

Yes, and of glooms, 
Of granite chasms, 
IIS 



116 A HEART'S CRY 

Where God Himself, 
God even, is lonely! 

And then I moan . . . 
For never a spot 
Has earth as lonely. 
As is my heart ! 

Never a torrent 
Torturing silence 
And cutting thro granite, 
As grief thro me! 

Never a gulf 
So deep with terror, 
As sudden remembrance 
That you are dead ! 



A MODERN STOIC 

Questions scuttle across his brain 

And gnaw like rats at his heart, 

Gnaw — as if it were cheese. 

For philosophy can not trap them, 

Its doors spring open again. 

And forgetfulness is futile, 

Since cracks of memory come in it. 

And the golden bars of love are weak, 

Too weak to shut them out. 

So scornfully he endures 
The feeding of each doubt, 
With a dull, silent sense 
Of a deeply accepted universe; 
And waits till his heart, withered with age, 
Is left to dry indifference. 
117 



PATHS 

Crashing in my hand 
The bay as I pass, 
Drinking in its fragrance 
With the sea's scent, 
While gull-wings write 
Poems white and fast 
On the blue sky 
That is soft with content; 
Crushing in my hand 
The bay and the juniper, 
WHiile I record 
Each line the gulls ^y^ite, 
I go by the sea path 
Down to the sea's edge, 
I go by heart paths 
Deep into delight. 
118 



PATHS 119 

Simj)Ie is my joy 

As the little sandpiper's, 

Who follows beside me 

With silvery song; 

Blither than the breeze, 

That skims great billows 

Nor knows how deej) 

Is their flov/ — or strong. 
Simple is my joy, 
A sunny sense-sweetness, 
Full of bird-bliss, 
Bay-warmlh, spray-leap. 
Mysteries there are 
And miseries beneath it, 
But sunk, like wrecks, 
Far down in the deep. 



NEED OF STORM 

( Naples-on-the-Gulf ) 

On the green floor of the Gulf the wind is walking, 
Printing it Avith invisible feet; 
The tide is talking. 

Purple and grey the horizon walls them round 
With purpler clouds. 

They wander in it like guests gently astray 
In a house deep mystery shrouds. 

I do not know the speech of the tide, 
For too articulate have become my years : 
Beauty brings only words, not breathless tears. 

So the young heron fishing there in the foam 
On the sand's edge, 

120 



NEED OF STORM 121 

Would once have taken my spirit far, far home 
To the infinite, when he vanished thro the gloam. 

But now I am left behind on the beach — a shell 
That no more knows the wonder of the sea's swell, 
Or more than the empty echo of its knell. 

To sea then, Life, wildly to sea with a storm 

Sweep me again. 

From the smooth dull beach of custom where I lie. 

That I may feel once more 

The swaying surge of passion thro me swarm ! 



MOMENTS 

1 
A GREEK, DYING 

(B.C. 400) 
Come nearer, Charon . . . 
I cannot step so far, into your boat. 
For I shall need some breath to say farewell 
To her you waft me from, 
Ere death sets us afloat. 

II 
A CHINESE POET 

(By the Whang-Ho) 
Today the lightest breeze 
Takes tribute from the trees. 
Golden leaves flutter down, 
Crimson leaves, purple, brown, 
On the tide, past the town . . . 
122 



MOMENTS 123 

Down ! 

I walk along the shore, 

Like many gone before, 

And sadly ask, What matters it, 

One leaf, or life, more? 

Ill 
DIVINATION 
I gaze deeply into the sky's crystal, 
Longing to read the years. 
I see clouds swirling there ... 
A bird quiver across them . . . 
Then out of them, falling, an autumn leaf. 

The cloud-swirl I have known; 
The quivering bird have been; 
Am I the falling leaf? . . . 



124 MOMENTS 

IV 

MOMENTS 
A crow caws, 
On the pine tops, 
In the sun. 
Silence. 
Eternity seems begun. 

Again the caw, 
Where the pine tops 

And sky blend. 
Shrillness. 
Eternity seems to end. 

V 
.\ PAGAN'S CREED 
1 will not boast, for the wanton Gods are strong, 
And the Fates have many a secret ambush laid, 
Yet to myself alone will I belong, 
And of mvself alone will be afraid ! 



MOMENTS 125 

VI 

YOUTH 
Gazing into a crystal of joy-dew 
Youth sees all heaven shining for it, blue, 
Till clouds begin to pass in darkling strife, 
Then the dew falls, and, lo, it sees — life! 



A MODERN CHANTEY 

All around the world I have heard tides soughing, 
Under pine or palm, over rock, reef or sand; 
North, East, or South, where the night 's quick at 

snuffing 
The candle of the day out, with an creepy hand! 

All around the world ! And I hope to God I '11 

never 
Fossilize on a shore, or rot in a town. 
Evolution in the brine began, the wise assever. 
Let it end when men no more in ships to sea go do^Mi. 
Chorus: Wfien no more 
Men no more 
In ships to sea go down! 



126 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 
I 

FREE 

were your heart not wide, dear, 
And were your soul not high, 

And were not both so deep, too, 
Deep as the April sky, 

1 should not find love freedom, 
But know a need to range 

All heaven and hell — a prisoner 
Pining for space and change. 

But since there 's depth within you 
To hang my moon and stars, 

Since I have not to beat vain wings 
Against offending bars, 
127 



12S SONGS TO A. H R. 

I find all other spaces 

That lie beyond our love 
Are prison — all alluring worlds 
Below me or above. 

II 

STILL! 
Glassed in the sea 
The gulls glide past, 
Boats swing at anchor, 
Full is the tide — 
Full as my heart, 
Now waking at dawn, 
Of love for you 
Who sleep at my side! 

All thro a night 
Of soft moon-fall 
Thus have you slept 
With tidal breath. 
Wake, oh awaken, 



SONGS TO A. II. R. 129 

The darkness is gone, 
Light, that is love. 
Still masters death! 

Ill 

CALLS 
Bird calls bird in deeps of the woodland, 

Love calls love in deeps of the heart- 
Over green meads we go to the music 

Out of the glad May earth a-start. 

Cloud calls cloud to dance on the skylands, 
Dream calls dream to dance in our eyes. 

So it has been with a million lovers, 
So it shall be, till the last love dies. 

IV 

THE OLD NEED 

Tonight I saw the new moon, while the vesper bells 

were ringing, 
A slender silver breath it seemed, swung on the 
April skies. 



130 SONGS TO A. H. R. 

Soft apple blossoms under it in white throngs were 
springing, 

And blossom-thoughts of you within my heart be- 
gan to rise. 

I saw the moon, I heard the bells, I felt the silver 

rapture 
Of stars that soon would blossom on the purple 

tree of night. 
But from a Universe in bloom I only sought to 

capture 
Soft-petalled words — but three — to tell again 

love's vernal might. 

V 
WHEN 
Some night we shall come here 

For the last time, 
Hear the last whippoorwill, 
Watch the last firefly, 
See the last hill 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 1^1 

Die into the darkneSvS, 

Ere is made the moon. 
Some night we shall came here . , . 

Shall it be soon? 

Some night we shall come here, 

Then — never more. 
One of us shall have gone, 
Over earth's last hill, 

Infinitely on: 
Out into a Vastness 

Whence a lesser glow 
Even than the firefly's 

Back to us can flow. 

Some night we shall come here, 

Then the one left 
Shall not dare hark again, 
Or upon stars gaze, 

But shrink, bereft, 



132 SONGS TO A. H. R, 

Backward from the heartbreak 

Hid in memory. 
Some night we shall come here . . . 
When shall it be? 



TO THE AFTERNOON MOON, AT SEA 

Take care, O wisp of a moon, 
Vague on the sunny blue above the sea, 
Or the gull flying across you 

Will pierce your veil-thin shape with his sharp 
wing ! 

Take care, or the wind will wilt you, 
As he does the clouds snowily drifting by you, 
And diffuse you over the sky, a silvery mist, 
To give more cool to the day! 

Take care, so near the horizon, 

Or a phantom skipper, one who has long been 

drowned. 
Will reach above it and seize you 
And make you his sail to circle the world forever.' 
133 



134 TO THE AFTERNOON MOON, AT SEA 
Take care, take care! for frailty 
Is the prey of the strong, and you, a wraith of it, 
Have }-et a long while to go before nightfall 
Brings you to sure effulgence ! 



INSUBSTANTIALITIES 

A misty moonlit sky, a moonlit sea, 
A soul moonlit, the misty soul of me, 
And nothing else but a sigh of misty air 
And a firefly like a drop of phosphor-dew 
Hung on the humid dimness — then, not there. 

All is a dissolution and a dream, 

A world that is not but can only seem, 

A world of mist distilled from moonlit space 

And insubstantial save to an earthless soul 

That in moonlight can find a biding-place. 



135 



THE HERDING 

Quietly, quietly in from the fields 
Of the grey Atlantic the billows come, 

Like sheep to the fold. 
Shorn by the rocks of fleecy foam. 
They sink on the brown seaweed at home; 
And a bell, like that of a bellwether, 

Is scarcely heard from the buoy — 
Save when they suddenly stumble together, 

In herded hurrying joy, 
Upon its guidance — then soft music 

From it is tolled. 

Far out in the murk that follows them in 
Is heard the call of the fog-horn's voice, 

Like a shepherd's — low. 
And the strays as if waiting it seem to pause 
136 



THE HERDING 137 

And lift their heads and listen — because 
It is sweet from wandering ways to be driven, 

When we have fearless breasts, 
When all that we strayed for has been given, 

When no want molests 
Us more — no need of the tide's ebbing 

And tide's flow. 



FULL TIDE 

Sea-scents, wild-rose scents, 
Bay and barberry too, 
Drench the wind, the Maine wind, 
That gulls are dipping thro, 
With soft hints, sweet hints, 
With lull, lure and desire; 
Witli memory-wafts and mysteries. 
And all the ineffable histories 
Made when the sea and land meet, 
And tlie sun lends nuptial fire. 

Sea-foam, and dream-foam. 
And which is which, who knows, 
When all day long the heart goes out 
To every wave that blows, 
That blossoms on the bright tide, 
138 



FULL TIDE 139 

Then sheds a shimmering crest 
And yields its tossing place to one 
Whose blooming is as quickly done — 
For beauty is ever swift — begot 
Of rapture and unrest. 

Sea-deeps, and soul-deeps, 

And where shall faith be found 

If not within the heart's beat 

Or in the surging sound 

Of the sea, which is the earth's heart, 

Beating with tireless might; 

Beating — tho but a tragedy 

Life seems on every land and sea; 

Beating to bring all breath, somehow, 

Out of despair's blight. 



ON THE MAINE COAST 

The rocks, lean fingers of the land, 

Reach out into the sea 

And cool themselves, all day long, 

In the tide drippingly. 

They catch the seaweed in them 

And the starfish on their tips, 

And gulls that light 

And the swift flight 

Of swallows skimming grey and white 

And sometimes sunken ships. 

The moon, God's perfect silver. 
With which He pays the world 
For toil and quest and day's unrest, 
Is washed on them and swirled. 
And avidly they seize it, 
140 



ON THE MAINE COAST 141 

Then let it slip away, 
Only again 
And yet again 

To grasp at it — as eager men 
At joy no hand can stay. 



SEANCE 

Hovering wings of terns 
Over the rock-pools flutter, 
For the tide, ebbed far out. 
Seems to stumble and stutter; 
Seems like a spirit lost, 
Unable to come again 
Back to the wonted ways and days 
Of ever- wanting men. 

And the moon, a medium 
Trance-pale, is laying her light 
Over its surge — till, lo. 
It turns from the deep and night. 
And the spirit-word it brings 
Is the message of all time, 
That doubt is only the ebb of faith. 
Which ever reflows sublime! 
142 



OVERWORN 

" Shall I ever sleep again? " he said, in the night- 
time. 
" Health is gone, hope gone, and joy is looking back 

at me! 
Looking with forgetful eyes at a dear delight-time, 
Ere the slug of age, and of slow despair's blight, 
Had trailed, thro my heart, disillusion's sullen 
slime ! 

" Shall I ever sleep again? My life 's a weary hour- 
glass. 

That empties, and turns again, and empties, with- 
out cease, 

WTiile leaf, then snow, falls, and April bud and 
flower pass 

Around the heavy sands of it, that only have the 
power 

143 



144 OVERWORN 

To sigh, every grain of them that slips thro me, 
'Alas!' 

" Shall I ever sleep again ? Ah yes, I am but tired 

now, 
Overborne, overworn, with reaching or regret. 
And hope's hue, sleep's dew, that in the murk are 

mired now, 
Will rise thro my heart again until it io inspired 
To rest above tlie cry of the when, why and how! " 



EXTREME UNCTION 

{In a French Hospital) 

1917 

" Is Anyone there in Heaven ? " 
She asked, with her eyes on a star. 
" Is Anyone there to hear me? 
I am Jeanne Marie Cinquemars, 
Is Anyone tliere? I am dying, 
And since death may end all, 
I would only know " — she listened — 
'* If France shall live or fall ! 

" Is Anyone there? I have given, 
Or lost, all a woman can. 
And now I am dying — ravished 
By one who once was a man. 
145 



146 EXTREME UNCTION 

Is Anyone there to hear me? 
Then let my enemy 
Be shriven — but me never 
If France dies utterly! " 



A WAR WINTER 

{1917-1918) 

Like unaccoutred armies on the hill 
The trees stand shivering in the wintry chill. 
The crows fly to them, couriers of ill, 
Saying each field is ice, and every rill. 

And the wind hurls 

A blast of death 

With every breath. 

The sky pours down a wheeling white barrage 
Of hail and snow; and a grey camouflage 
Of gloom is sent — a creeping cold mirage 

Of the bleak night 

That hides wild hosts 

In dark outposts. 

147 



14« A WAR WINTER 

Twilight is settling like the death of God 
Upon an earth that 's but a frozen clod, 
And that a deeper pall of snow will sod, 

Burying deep 

All trace of Him, 

From rim to rim. 



TO AMERICA AT WAR 

O my America, I could avow 

None ever had a country till this hour, 

When men have found within their hearts the power, 

Fighting for more than country, to endow 

The souls of Liberty, half-born till now. 

With strength to link the patriot's lesser plea 

Unto the larger of Humanity — 

Which sees at last that war must end, and how! 

Fight, then, the fight for Freedom, as of old, 
And even more for Union I For, apart, 
Nations will ever stab each to the heart, 
And Freedom for a pottage mess be sold. 
Fight for the greatest flag ever unfurled, 
For one to encompass you — and all the world ! 



149 



STORM AND LULL 

(During the Great Battles of July, 1918) 

Last night the sea was lashed by rain 
And swept by fog — as were the fields 
Of battle by fierce shell and gas — 
But now wide calm has come to pass. 
The lighthouse, listless, white, and lone, 
Stands on the foreland sterilely, 
As if it never would need again 
To bleed its warning ray to men : 
Stone does it seem, and only stone. 

The clouds hang on the sky as still 
As windless, rainless tatters can, 
Empty of aim and void of stress. 
Of memory and forgetfulness. 
150 



STORM AND LULL 151 

Neutral upon a sea and sky 
That have declared neutralit) 
To every warring element, 
They do not even seem forespcnt, 
Nor fain either to live or die. 

There is a gull somewhere a-wing 
And smoke on the horizon line, 
To tell me hunger is not dead 
Or life put utterly to bed. 
In the blue coma of the sea 
And air they seem a karma, left 
By the old world to recreate 
Another — that shall meet its fate — 
And pass on to heredity. 

And even as I gaze the strange 
Reincarnation has begun, 
The wind has swept away the sun, 
The calm is like a dream undone. 
The lighthouse lowers, the waves glance 



152 STORM AND LULL 

With a new birth-cry, and I feel 
Life, reawakened to its fate 
From a brief moment's opiate, 
Surge on to victory in France! 



TO PRESIDENT WILSON 

(October, 1918) 

Wood row Wilson, master of patience, 
Master of silence, master of speech; 
Master amid tlie world's war-frenzy 
Of clear wisdom's inward reach; 
Watcher of raging civilizations 
Till the one righteous hour arrives 
When you can speak for all nations, 
Great is your guidance now that shrives 
Both friend and foe of base soul-gyves! 

Woodrow Wilson, lofty listener 
At the great heart of Destiny; 
Hearing above all feverous hatred 
Justice breathing what should be; 
153 



154 TO PRESIDENT WILSON 

Still for a peace that shall not perish 
Stand — for if ever a Providence 
Comes from the Universe to nourish 
Men in their woe, and lead them hence, 
Near us now is its Immanence! 



THANKSGIVING, 1918 

Gray flights of cloud pour from the North, 

But khakied leaves, skirling, 

Are swept by the wind forward, 

Or leap high up at the branches 

As if with a last desire for life, 

Ere beaten down in the forest 

They lie — to be blown away into brooks or hollows. 

Then lo, I am giving thanks — 
As cloud and wind cease — 
That now our khakied lads in the far Argonne 
No longer are leaping up to fall forward, 
And be beaten down in the bloody mire and tangle 
Of the Forest's undergrowth, 
But are glowing with victory-warmth in Luxem- 
bourg! 

155 



A REVOLUTIONIST'S DESPAIR 

(During the Bolshevik Reign of Terror) 

Wanton, and more than wanton, is this world, 
That can debauch all virtues of the soul ; 
Ravage the fairest dreem ever unfurled 
By Faith; of virgin Hope take any toll- 
That with hot hands of rioting can rape 
Freedom, until anarchic and unclad, 
She stalks, over restraint, a shameless shape, 
Murderous and licentious, sheerly mad. 
That even of Humanity's pure bride. 
Pity, can make a bitter prostitute, 
Ready to entertain Revenge and Loot 
When she has seen a people crucified. 
Yes, ready even to force, at their pain-call, 
Her sister virtues like herself to fall ! 
156 



A MOTHER'S DIRGE 

Hurry, O gulls, across the sunset. 
Hurry off to your far sea-home! 
Cr\- as you fly, nor ever once let 
Night take you, and wild sea-gloam 
(For the wind and tide are rising!) 

Wilder darkness has overtaken 

Me: no wings had I to escape 

Death, whose breath as a pall was shaken 

Over my boy's sweet soldier shape 

(While the battle-tide was rising!) 



157 



POET AND PEOPLE 

Farid, the Sufi poet, the maker of attar of roses, 
Was seized by a soldier of Genghis, whose hordes 

ravished the East; 
Was set for sale in the market; and heard the cry 

to the buyers, 
" Who gives me a thousand dirhams? who covets a 

poet-priest ? " 

And answer came, from a passer, a scomer of mys- 
tery-mongers, 

A shah for whom a rose was a rose, and the soul 
of it but dust, 

" I buy him, to keep ray dung-hill, his Allah-lays to 
find there; 

For says he not that Allah in all things must be — 
must?" 

158 



rOET AND PEOPLE 159 

" Take him! " the captor answered.— But " Hold! " 
Farid cried proudly, 

Swept by a sense immortal, song oft thro him had 
sent. 

Then, as his exaltation compelled his captor's won- 
der, 

" A fairer bid will follow! " — The passer mocking 
went. 

"Then who, who bids for the poet?" — Again a 

passer answered, 
"I! ... A bundle of fodder!" . . . Farid was 

flung from pride, 
From faith that he was immortal. And so to the 

soldier said he, 
" Take it, for I am worthless. Allah in me has 

died." 

*' Lying dog of a rhymster, die too, then ! " raged 
the captor. 



160 POET AND PEOPLE 

And down at his feet struck him, with scurrile 

scimitar. — 
So does the world, in passing, its poets blindly 

slaughter; 
So do its poets, doubting, fall ever from their star. 



SAID CHANG WU 

Said Chang Wu, in his need, 
" Kings are of a godly breed, 
Surely of a godly breed, 

In China! 
For the last of Kubla's line, 
Kubla with successors nine 
To his throne of Kaan-Bali, 
Is the idiot, Toghon Timur. 

'* Hira four hundred million bow to. 
Humbly bow and kow-tow to. 
As he sits, solemnly, 
In exalted idiocy, 
On his throne at Kaan-Bali; 
As he sits and takes tribute, 
Gold, jade and ruby stones, 
161 



162 SAID CHANG WU 

Broken hearts and broken bones, 

On a dais built to be 

Tartar, eternally, 

From Yenking to the Yellow Sea. 

" Aye, most surely," murmured Chang, 
In his need, 

" Kings are of a godly breed 
In China!" 



TO POETS WHO DESPOND 

Sailing west, ever west, 
Columbus suing his anxious quest 
Saw dawns come and days go, 
Dawns and days, how many and slow, 

Nor ever a land sighted ! 
Then a dawn came, when on the air 
He saw bird-wings around him, fair 
And full of promise of a new world 
Where his ship's wings could rest, furled, 

And his dream's faith be righted! 

And so, poets, even so 
With us it is, long do we go 
Sailing the seas of lone desire 
Nor ever, ever seeming nigher 
The land of a new vision! 
163 



164 TO POETS WHO DESPOND 

Then sudden the wings of thought are stirred 
Before us, like that promise-bird, 
And soon we know Ave are near the shore 
Of a song that never was sung before — 
A song frOTQ lands elysianJ 



YOUNG APRIL 

April leaf-led; hills flower-spread; 

And the little day-moon right up over heed! 

April bee-strewn; bird and brook tune; 
And right up the blue the little day-moon! 

April as far as the last hills are, 
And every flower in her lap a star! 

April a-swoon with the sky's clear boon, 
And, for her soul, the little day-moon I 



16S 



OLD LOVE AND NEW 

Last night shut in from wind and wet, 

And seeking somehow to forget 

How rain brings wanting or regret, 

We toyed, half-wistful, with the planchette. 

First there was nothing; then it said 
That you had come back from the dead, 
And that you knew how I had wed 
Another — put her in your stead. 

Reproach I looked for, then, from you; 
And so, between old love and new, 
I wondered which my heart would do, 
Choose living rose or buried rue. 

But no reproach — if you were there, 
Touching my heart with the sweet air 
166 



OLD LOVE AND NEW 167 

Of Strangeness I had thought so fair 
In all our years of joy or care — 

No word's reproach or jealousy 
Slipped thro the table's spiritry; 
Tho where your arms were wont to be 
Hers softly throbbing clung to me. 

No! But all free of bitterness 

You only said with the old stress, 

" Do you remember Inverness 

And the bluebells? " — no more nor less. 

And yet too much! For all night long 
Amid the wind's half-moan, half song, 
I heard bluebells in a bent throng 
Toll sadly! I have done you wrong! 

More wrong, being untrue and slack, 
Than I can know ! For you may lack 
Immortal love . . . The thought is rack. 
Would that again I had you back! 



VANQUISHED 

Out upon you, mockingbird, how can I sing 

That life 's but a sorry thing, a stale thing, and 
flat, 

A bitterness, a barrenness, a dry and desert spring, 
While your heart is rilling a note as pure as that ! 

Out upon you, optimist, wild philosopher. 

So sweet in unreason, so irresistible, 
That my darkest logic dissolves to but a blur. 

And I swear that Nature of bliss alone is full. 



168 



A GAMBLER'S GUESS AT IT 

What are the stars but dice of God 
Flung on the night's uncertain sod ? 

What is the stake He lays \vith Fate 
But whether Life 's for love or hate ? 

What if He loses to the Foe? 
Forfeit we — and He — must go. 

What if He wins? Security 
For all thro all eternity. 



169 



THE CHIME-MASTER'S SONG 

My heart is a bell, and joy beats in it, 

A bell, moulded 

By hands sublime, 
And hung to sound, for one brief minute, 

High on a beam 

Of the towers of Time. 

My heart is a bell, and Life can ring it, 

When love bids. 

Or at beauty's call; 
With such wonder can sway and swing it 

That its Maker 

Is heard in all ! 



170 



RESURGENCE 

I was content, O Sea, to be free for a space from 

striving, 
Content as the brown weed is, at rest on rocks in the 

sun, 
When the salt tide is out, and the surf no more is 

riving 
At its roots, or swirling and bidding it sway where 

the white waves run. 

I was content — with life, and love, and a little 

over; 
A little achieved of the much that is given to men 

to do. 
But now with your tidal strife do you come again, 

vain rover, 
And tell of vastitudes to be sailed, or sounded, anew. 
171 



172 RESURGENCE 

Now again do you surge. And the fathomless tides 

of thinking. 
Of wanting , waiting, despairing — or daring — 

with you come. 
The inner tides of the soul, that had ebbed with 

slumberous shrinking. 
But now are bursting again, thro the caves of it 

long numb. 

So vainly I lie on the cliff with the blissful Blue 

above me 
And listless sated gulls afloat below on the swells. 
For I am soothless, sateless, because of desires that 

shove me 
Out and away with the winds, on quests no distance 

quells ! 



THE GREATER PATIENCE 

The passionless and imperceptible drifting 

Of clouds that come where no wind seems to be, 

That rise as if some need of earth were lifting 

Them on, to bring her fields fertility. 

Is like this moving thro the soul of me 

Of thoughts that seem of some magnetic need 

At the heart of life to come, and drop their dew, 

And bring the fruitful words that men call true. 

What is it you would tell me, O great skies? 
That imperceptible is God's intent? 
Coming as if its quest were never meant, 
Yet bringing forth such fruit as never dies? 
And do you therefore vow the impatient weave 
But doubt; the patient only can believe? 



173 



AFTER THE SYMPHONY 

The last finale had crashed, 
A surging shower of iridescent vibrance. 
And as the musicians sighed and rose 
To drift away thro the night, 
Their tired instruments, glinting no longer, 
Catching no longer enchanted rhythms 
Into their breasts of wood and brass^ 
Were laid away in case and cover, 
Husht. 

The violins slept; 

With rhythm-dreams flitting along their fibres. 

The flute with an aria 

Lingering yet at its vents, 

Like a disembodied soul at earthly haunts, 

Lay still; 

174 



AFTER THE SYMPHONY 175 

And still lay the clarionet and sad oboe 
In the leathern dark that swathed them. 

Then I heard speaking, 

Started, I think, by a viola, 

" How much Beethoven has said in his Fifth ! 

Had he but told us a little more 

The meaning of all life's Minors 

Would surely be open to us! " 

A piccolo sighed, "Perhaps." 

To which a cello mourned reply, 
" No; you forget Tchaikowsky! 
Chords cannot plumb the ultimate meaning of 

sorrow. 
The * Pathetique ' is poof that grief and wrong 
Are discord-atoms, element-powers, 
That enter all being darkly. 
Resolve them away, we may, 
Ever into the Major, 



176 AFTER THE SYMPHONY 

But ever, as mist to moors, they return, 
Blindly to brew their bane. 
Meanings are but illusions that vanislj, 
Mysteries only abide! " 

" Then," said a blunt bass-viol, 

" Illusions are better, tho briefer! 

Bach, with his clarity, for me! 

The strong crisp creed of a fugue. 

Free of all doublings, achings, searchings, 

Sure at last of completion! " 

" And of immortality too? " asked an oboe, 

With reedy quaver. 

" Would indeed it were so! . . . 

Would we could round life off 

To a circle of perfection! " 

" But since we cannot," rang a horn, 

" For wishes are not wonders, 

Why do we whine of meaning and mystery! 



AFTER THE SYMPHONY 177 

What do these matter! Power is all! 
Strength to shout to the heavens 
That we are masters of them 
As long as we breathe of earth. 
For Death and the Dead are equals — both are 
dead! » 

From the drums a volley echoed, " Both are dead ! " 

Whereon was hushing, 

But not ceasing; 

No more peace or ceasing 

Than follows the rattle of clods on a cof&n. 

For all waited the word of their leader, 

The violin, whose voice reverbs 

The hope and despair of the world. 

And softly it began, . . . 

As if the thronging memories 

Of a thousand symphonies stirred it: 

Of allegros that ran like youth 



178 AFTER THE SYMPHONY 

Before slow-aging adagios; 

Of scherzos, that dissolved in the anns 

Of funeral strains, to be borne away 

On the solemn hearse of silence; 

Softly it began, . . . 

" We play but ill, comrades, 

And blind to the Score's beauty. 

Else neither meaning nor mystery 

Would overmuch trouble us! 

Great joy can only come to the griever, 

Great grief, to the rejoicer. 

So only they who are resonant 

With both, and who sound harmonies 

That waken harmonics infinite, 

Only they play well ! 

Be the clef what it may, then. 

Be the time brave or broken. 

There is a rhythm alwheres 

Of mingled Major and Minor 

For those with soul to seize it ! " 



AFTER THE SYMPHONY 179 

An interval followed 
Of silverly murmured assent: 
Not even the blare-begetting horn broke it. 
Then slow sleep muted all to oblivion. 



THE END 



WRAITHS AND REALITIES 

By CALE YOUNG RICE 



"In the writing of lyrics Mr. Rice is unequalled 
by any modern poet. . . . One must go outside 
of contemporary life to find anything of similar 
excellence." — Gordon Ray Young (The Los An- 
geles Times.) 

"A new book by Mr. Rice is always an event 
in American letters. . . . We may, perhaps, have 
gotten beyond the point of regarding him as the 
one poet of America, but we can never fail to 
respond to his clear upspringing song." — The New 
York Tribune. 

"Here, for all to read, is poetic genius spurred 
and wrought upon ... by a rare and wondrous 
poetic inspiration. ... It is like great chimes 
sounding — jangled at times or overborne — ^but al- 
ways great." — The Philadelphia North American. 

"Mr. Rice in his narratives can tell such tales 
as the old balladmakers would have gloated* over, 
and can make them contemporary and convincing. 
He can create life tragedies or comedies in a few 
lines and leave the reader with a sense of having 
been given a full meal of circumstance. . . . He 
is original without striving to be so, and one can 
never be embarrassed by the affirmation that he 
has come to hold a 'high place among poets of 
America." — The Chicago Tribune. 



"Cale Young Rice has been credited with some 
of the finest poetry, and regarded as a distin- 
guished master of lyric utterance, and this latest 
volume is warrant for such approval." — Thie 
Brooklyn Eagle. 

"We find in Mr. Rice the large and elemental 
vision a poet must have to serve his people when 
overwhelmed by elemental sorrows and passions. 
His poetry is a spiritual force interpreting life in 
the various phases of intellect and emotion, with 
a beauty of finish and sense of form that are un- 
erring." — The Louisville Post. 

"All that has been said of Cale Young Rice, 
and that is much indeed, is justified in this latest 
volume." — The San Francisco Chronicle. 

"Mr. Rice has no superior as a lyric poet any- 
where, and this volume will add yet more to the 
fame of our really great poet." — A. T. Robertson 
(The Baptist World). 

"Cale Young Rice is a real poet of genuine and 
sincere inspiration, never reminiscent or imitative 
or obvious, but singing from a full heart his keen, 
meditative songs." — The New York Times. 



12mo. 187 pages. Price $1.25 



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SONGS TO A. H. R. 

By CALE YOUNG RICE 



"Mr. Rice of to-day is the poet who sang to us 
yesterday of the big, vital things of life. . . . 
With real genius he brings to the soul a con- 
sciousness of the strength of things many of us 
have but dimly sensed in all our years. . . . 'Songs 
to A. H. R.' maintains the ardor of imagination 
as v/ell as delicacy and vigor of sentiment which 
ever mark his work." — The Philadelphia Record. 

"The sentiment of this volume is of the strong 
spiritual type richly deserving the name of love 
songs." — The Springfield Republican. 

"There is no absence of felicity in these songs 
—they possess an undeniable singing quality. Mr. 
Rice's poetic mood is sustained in the key of a 
fine fresh faith, and he has embodied it in verse 
of«a finished texture." — The Dial. 

"These songs are to be put in a place by them- 
selves in modern verse." — The Rochester Demo- 
crat. 

"These poems are so beautiful and satisfying 
that they can be read again and again." — The 
Portland Oregonian. 



"They range through many forms of the one 
divine emotion. Each is worthy of its name, and 
the volume, breathing with purity and tenderness, 
bums with a spiritual flame." — Margaret Steele 
Anderson (The Louisville Post). 

"Spiritual in tone, lyrical in expression, they 
are songs that reveal new dimensions of this 
poet's virtuosity and skill." — The Philadelphia 
Press. 

"Mr.. Rice writes with the buoyant rhythmic 
uprush of a younger age — the passion of these 
songs is not the dark flower upon which Pippa 
breaks in Browning's poem^ but its tranquillity 
does not lessen its depth." — The New York Times. 

"Spiritual and beautiful love songs . . . bring- 
ing a breath of the upper air of love. and reaffirm- 
ing one's faith in its permanence." — Jessie B. 
Rittenhouse (The Bookman). 

"Many of these songs are so perfectly sponta- 
neous that art had no share in them ... or their 
art. is so subtle and fine as to make them seem 
wholly spontaneous." — The London Bookman. 



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Trails Sunward 

By 
CALE YOUNG RICE 

Cale Young Rice has written some of the finest 
poetry of the last decade, and is the author of 
the very best poetic dramas ever written by an 
American. . . . He is one of the few supreme 
lyrists . . . and one of the few remaining lovers 
of beauty . . . who write it. One of the very few 
writers of vers litre who know just what they are 
doing. — The Los Angeles Times. 

Another book by Cale Young Rice . . . one of 
the few poetic geniuses this country has produced. 
... In its sixty or more poems may be found the 
hall mark of individuality that denotes preemi- 
nence and signalizes independence. — The Phila- 
delphia North American. 

Mr. Rice attempts and succeeds in deepening the 
note of his singing . . . keeping its brilliant tech- 
nique, its intricate verse formation, but seeking 
all the while for words to interpret the profound 
things of life. The music of his lines is more per- 
fect than ever, his rhythms fresh and varied. — 
Littell's Living Age. 

Cale Young Rice's work is always simple and sin- 
cere . . . but that does not prevent him from 
voicing his song with passion and virility. Nearly 
all his poems have elevation of thought and feel- 
ing, with beauty of imagery and music. — The New 
York Times. 

Readers familiar with Cale Young Rice's previous 
work realize that he ranks with the very best 
modern poets. — The New Orleans Times-Pica' 

yune. 



Whether the forms of this book are lyrical, nar- 
rative, or dramatic, there is an excellence of work- 
manship that denotes the master hand. . . . And 
while the range of ideas is broad, the treatment of 
each is distinguished by a strength and beauty re- 
markably fine. — The Continent (Chicago). 

Mr. Rice proves the fine argument of his preface 
. . . for this book has in it form and beauty and 
a full reflection of the externals as well as the 
soul of the America he loves. — The Philadelphia 
Public Ledger. 

The work of this poet always demands and re- 
ceives unstinted admiration. . . . His is not the 
poetic fashion of the moment, but of all poetic 
time. — The Chicago Herald. 

In "Trails Sunward," Mr. Rice demonstrates as 
heretofore the possibility of attaining poetic 
growth and originality, even in the Twentieth 
Century, without extremism. . . . Sanity linked 
with vitality and breadth in art make for per- 
manence, and one can but feel that Mr. Rice builds 
for more than a day. — The Louisville Courier 
Journal. 

I rarely use the term "sublimity," yet in touches 
of "The Foreseers," particularly in its cavern-set 
opening, I should say that Mr. Rice had scaled that 
eminence. — O. W. Firkins (The Nation). 



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EARTH AND NEW EARTH 

By 

CALE YOUNG RICE 

Cale Young Rice — like Alfred Noyes — may be ex- 
celled by a contemporary here and there in one 
requirement of his art, but both poets excel in 
comprehensiveness of view and both are geniuses 
of the robust order — voluminous producers. 
Given qualit3% sustained and wide ranging com- 
position is a fair test of poetic power. — The New 
York Sun. 

Glancing thru the reviews quoted at the end of 
"Earth and New Earth" we note that we have 
said some very enthusiastic things in praise of the 
poetry of Cale Young Rice, and yet there is not 
an adjective we would withdraw. On the con- 
trary each new volume only confirms the expecta- 
tion of the better work this writer was to pro- 
duce. — The San Francisco Chronicle. 

This is a volum.e of verse rich in dramatic quality 
and beauty of conception . . . Every poem is 
quotable and the collection must appeal to all whd 
can appreciate the highest forms of modern verse. 
— The Bookseller {New York). 

Any one familiar with "Qoister Lays," "The 
Mystic," etc., does not need to be told that they 
rank with the very best poetry. And Air. Rice's 
dramas are not equaled by any other American 
author's. . . . And when those who are loyal to 
poetic traditions cherished through the whole his- 
tory of our language contemplate the anemia and 
artificiality of contemporaries, they can but assert 
that Mr. Rice has the grasp and sweep, the 
rhythm, imagery and pulsating sympathy, which 
in wondering admiration are ascribed to genius. 
— The Los Angeles Times. 



The Collected 
Plays and Poems 

OF 

CALE YOUNG RICE 

The great quality of Cale Young Rice's work is 
that, amid all the distractions and changes of con- 
temporary taste, it remains true to the central 
drift of great poetry. His interests are very wide 
. . . and his books open up a most varied world 
of emotion and romance. — Gilbert Murray. 

These volumes are an anthology wrought by a 
master hand and endowed with perennial vitality. 

. . . This writer is the most distinguished master 
of lyric utterance in the new world . . . and he 
has contributed much to the scanty stock of Amer- 
ican literary fame. Fashions in poetry come and 
go, and minor lights twinkle fitfully as they pass 
in tumultuous review. But these volumes are of 
the things that are eternal in poetic expression. 

. . . They embody the hopes and impulses of uni- 
versal humanity. — The Philadelphia North Amer- 
ican. 

Mr. Rice has been hailed by too many critics as 
the poet of his country, if not of his generation, 
not to create a demand for a full edition of his 
works. — The Hartford (Conn.) Courant. 

This gathering of his forces stamps Mr. Rice as 
one of the world's true poets, remarkable alike 
for strength, versatility and beauty of expression. 
— The Chicago Herald (Ethel M. Colson). 



Any one familiar with "Cloister Lays," "The 
Mystic," etc., does not need to be told that they 
rank with the very best poetry. And Mr. Rice's 
dramas are not equaled by any other American 
author's. . . . The admirable characteristic of his 
work is the understanding of life. . . . And when 
those who are loyal to poetic traditions cherished 
through the whole history of our language con- 
template the anemia and artificiality of contem- 
poraries, they can but assert that Mr. Rice has 
the grasp and sweep, the rhythm, imagery and 
pulsating sympathy, which in wondering admira- 
tion are ascribed to genius. — The Los Angeles 
Times. 

Mr. Rice's poetic dramas have won him highest 
praise. But the universality of his genius is no- 
where more apparent than in his lyrics. . . . For 
sheer grace and loveliness some of these lyrics are 
unsurpassed in modern poetry. — The N. E. Home- 
stead (Springfield, Mass.). 

It is with no undue repetition that we speak of 
the very great range and very great variety of 
Mr. Rice's subject, inspiration, and mode of ex- 
pression. . . . The passage of his spirit is truly 
from deep to deep. — Margaret S. Anderson (The 
Louisville Evening Post). 

In Mr. Rice we have a voice such as America has 
rarely known before. — The Rochester (N. Y.) 
Post Express. 

It is good to find such sincere and beautiful work 
as is in these two volumes. . . . Here is a writer 
with no wish to purchase fame at the price of 
eccentricity of either form or subject. — The Inde- 
pendent. 



Mr. Rice's style is that of the masters. . . . He 
will live with our great poets. — Louisville Herald 
(J. J. Cole). 

Mr. Rice is an American by birth, but he is not 
merely an American poet. Over existence and the 
whole world his vision extends. He is a poet of 
human life and his range is uncircumscribed. — 
The Baltimore Evening News. 

Viewing Mr. Rice's plays as a whole, I should say 
that his prime virtue is fecundity or affluence, the 
power to conceive and combine events resource- 
fully, and an abundance of pointed phrases which 
recalls and half restores the great Elisabethans. 
His aptitude for structure is great. — The Nation 
(O. W. Firkins). 

Mr. Rice has fairly won his singing robes and has 
a right to be ranked with the first of living poets. 
One must read the volumes to get an idea of 
their cosmopolitan breadth and fresh abiding 
charm. . . . The dramas, taken as a whole, rep- 
resent the most important work of the kind that 
has been done by any living writer; . . . This 
work belongs to that great world where the 
mightiest spiritual and intellectual forces are for- 
ever contending; to that deeper life which calls 
for the rarest gifts of poetic expression. — The 
Book News Monthly (Albert S. Henry). 

2 Vol. $3.00 net 
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TPHE following volumes are now 
* included in the author's "Collected 
Plays and Poems/' and are not ob- 
tainable elsewhere : 



At the World's Heart 

Cale Young Rice is highly esteemed by readers 
wherever English is the native speech. — The Man- 
chester {England) Guardian. 

Porzia; A Play 

It matters little that we hesitate between ranking 
Mr. Rice highest as dramatist or lyrist ; what mat- 
ters is that he has the faculty divine laeyond any 
living poet of America ; his inspiration is true, 
and his poetry is the real thing. — The London 
Bookman. 

Far Quests 

It shows a wide range of thought, and synvpathy, 
and real skill in workmanship, while occasionally 
it rises to heights of simplicity and truth, that 
suggest such inspiration as should mean lasting 
fame. — The Daily Telegraph {London). 

The Immortal Lure; Four Plays 

It is great art — with great vitality. — James Lane 
Allen. 

Different from Paola and Francesca, but excelling 
it — or any of Stephen Phillips's work — in a vivid 
presentment of a supreme moment in the lives of 
the characters. — The New York Times. 



Many Godg 

These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the 
East , . . What I am sure of in Mr. Rice is that 
here we have an American poet whom we may 
claim as ours. — William Dean Howells, in The 
North American Review. 

Nirvana Days 

Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up 
almost the entire equipment of many poets now- 
adays, but human nature is more to him always 
. . . and he has the feeling and imaginative sym- 
pathy without which all poetry is but an empty 
and vain thing. — The London Bookman. 

A Night in Avignon > A Play 

It is as vivid as a page from Browning, Mr. Rice 
has the dramatic pulse. — James Huneker. 

Yolanda of Cyprus: A Play 

It has real life and drama, not merely beautiful 
words, and so differs from the great mass of 
poetic plays. — Prof. Gilbert Murray. 

David: A Play 

It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an English- 
man or a Frenchman, his reputation as his coun- 
try's most distinguished poetic dramatist would 
have been assured by a more universal sign of 
recognition. — The Baltimore News. 
Charles Di Tocca: A Play 

It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical 
drama written by an American for some years. 
There is genuine pathos, mighty yet never repel- 
lant passion, great sincerity and penetration, and 
great elevation and beauty of language. — The 
Chicago Post. 

Song-Surf 

Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with 
nature and life, and a welcome originality of sen- 
timent and metrical harmony. — Sydney Lee. 



